UC Student Regent’s Tightrope Walk Ends

Jenny Doh was torn.

Her heart was with the more than 125 students marching on a University of California Board of Regents meeting to protest a 40% hike in student fees. But as student regent on the 26-member advisory board, she dared not risk her effectiveness as a credible voice for students by joining the picketers.

Instead, she persuaded at least five other regents to leave their air-conditioned meeting rooms to speak with the placard-waving college students on the UCI Student Center lawn last May.

“I was proudest at that moment of Jenny Doh,” UCI ombudsman Ronald Wilson said. “She would have loved to be one of those students with the sign in her hand. At the same time she recognized her responsibility as a regent.”

It has been a crucible year for the 24-year-old native of Korea, whose 12-month term as student regent officially ends on Sunday.

Doh was challenged by some of the very students she sought to represent. She was thrust into a controversy between blacks and Asians at a UC conference for minority students. She had to learn to walk that tightrope of being both a public official and a student crusader during perhaps the most difficult budget year in the history of the University of California.

All the while, the self-described radical feminist from Bakersfield wrestled with her activist inclinations and learned to temper her remarks, say friends and advisers.

“Before she became student regent, if you had called her a diplomat, she’d have hit you,” laughed Elaine Yamaguchi, a staff lobbyist for the University of California Students Assn. in Sacramento. “But she has become very much a diplomat. . . .”

“She’s helped gain students more credibility in the eyes of regents. She’s shown that students are not just radicals who want to burn things down or free research animals. She’s demonstrated that students can have a positive say in how the university is run,” said Yamaguchi, who has worked closely with the last several student regents.

The job has had its awkward moments.

At her first regents meeting in February, 1990, former UCI executive vice chancellor Chang-Lin Tien was named the new chancellor of UC Berkeley. One regent approached Doh after Tien’s appointment and offered his congratulations to her on having “such a wonderful husband.”

Doh explained politely that she was not married to Chancellor Tien but was the newly appointed student regent. The man, whom she declines to identify, tried to recoup by saying: “It’s a big day for you Orientals.”

Doh was so shocked, she just walked away.

“I don’t think he meant to insult Jenny Doh. But it shows how insensitivity can creep up on you in society,” said Doh, who still remembers the Anglo children who asked why her nose was flat and her eyes were shaped so strangely.

Then there was the avalanche of criticism from students for not blocking the 40% fee increase, the largest single jump in the 123-year history of the UC system.

Some even demanded she boycott last February’s regents meeting, where the fee increase was to be considered.

Doh talked over the boycott demand with Wilson. “Never once did she seriously think about not being there,” Wilson recalled.

She was, however, seeking ideas on how to make the best case for students.

Yamaguchi said Doh called her two days before the vote to discuss the fee issue. “She said, ‘This is what’s going to happen. You know I’m only one vote. What do you think we could do?’ ”

On Feb. 14, Doh gave a reasoned, impassioned speech to fellow regents before they voted on the fee increase. She spoke of students who were juggling two and three jobs while taking a full load of classes. Another $650-plus in fees each year would stretch them beyond their limits, she said.

“She gave us a higher awareness that there are many students who are barely making it through financially and that this could be the death knell for them,” recalled Meredith J. Khachigian of San Clemente, who takes over as chairman of the Board of Regents on Monday.

“It was a very, very hard decision to vote for the higher fees. (Doh’s remarks) made the decision harder,” Khachigian said.

Another test for Doh occurred at a “Students of Color” conference held at UCI last winter.

An Anglo student who was active with African-American student groups remarked that Asian students shouldn’t be included in affirmative action programs, Doh said. The student suggested that Asians work with society’s Anglo majority to oppress African-Americans.

Outraged Asian students demanded that Doh, the first Asian student regent, condemn the statement.

“I did, but I certainly gave the benefit of the doubt to the African-American students that one person’s words--especially statements as offensive as those were--did not represent the opinions of a whole group,” Doh said.

She winced and laughed at the same instant, then remembered what UCI Chancellor Jack W. Peltason told her at the time: “It’s a maturing process, Jenny.”

In that process, Doh has not abandoned her radical politics. In fact, it may well have crystallized them.

Doh, who graduated this month with a degree in political science, has been accepted to George Washington University’s public policy graduate program. She has put that on hold for the year to consider whether law school would be better training for what she sees as her life’s mission.

“I want to work on issues that will help women, like child care and equal pay. I really think the leaders of this nation want us (women) to go back to the Dark Ages,” she said vehemently, referring to a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision barring doctors at federally funded clinics from discussing abortion.

She also seems in no hurry to leave UCI.

Doh is so committed to “making a difference” that she decided to take a job at UCI organizing a summer program for high school students.

“I’m really excited about the program,” she said over a morning cup of coffee in the campus Cornerstone Cafe, clad in her usual denim overalls--a far cry from the corporate suits and pumps she wears at regents meetings.

“We’ll explore issues like apartheid, poverty, hunger and global feminism. . . . The students will be learning a lot about injustice. . . . It’s going to be great.”