State funds may not be used to pay for sports at University of California schools.
According to an article by Nanette Asimov in the San Francisco Chronicle:
With a few words in the new state budget, lawmakers will ban spending taxpayer money on intercollegiate athletics – and end a controversy that started when a sharp-eyed UC Berkeley professor found that university officials had changed details of the law.
In March, computer science Professor Brian Barsky was checking changes to the state budget when he noticed a subtle difference that could, he believed, allow public money to flow to UC baseball, gymnastics, rugby and other cash-strapped teams, at the expense of academics. “Without any discussion, explanation, or publicity, the time-honored prohibition on using state funds for intercollegiate athletics at UC disappeared from the state budget,” Barsky said.
There was already a state ban in place, and there had been one for 30 years, but university officials apparently asked the state to ease the rule “for bookkeeping reasons.”
