The University of California, Riverside has shuttered its UC Riverside School of Business’ Center for Economic Forecasting and Development after complaints from faculty and graduate students that the center’s reports arrived at conclusions they didn’t like. Naturally, there are crickets about union-allied labor centers now popping up at UC campuses across the state.

Back in 2015, research and consulting company Beacon Economics was tapped to run the Center for Economic Forecasting and Development at UCR. But now, eight years later, there’s suddenly a problem about the arrangement.

In February of this year, a letter was submitted to the UC Regents from faculty and graduate students condemning the arrangement between UC Riverside and Beacon Economics. They particularly lamented a report from the center last year that warned that Assembly Bill 257 from Assemblyman Chris Holden, D-Pasadena, would lead to a spike in fast food restaurant prices.

AB 257 would establish a state Fast Food Council empowered to dictate wages and working conditions at fast food restaurants. It was ultimately signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom, but is currently halted pending a ballot referendum to reverse it.

In breathlessly hysterical language, the letter from faculty and grad students framed the Center for Economic Forecasting and Development report about the bill as concluding that “that legislation allowing fast-food workers a say in setting their pay would mean fast-food price hikes of up to 20 percent or more ... They are trying to convince voters that empowering fast-food workers — most of them women and most of them Latino, Black, or Asian — means a 20 percent ‘food tax.’”

Chris Thornberg, who founded Beacon Economics, rightly told the Southern California News Group that the faculty letter exposes the hypocrisy of the faculty and graduate students.

While they claim to care about academic freedom and freedom of speech, at the end of the day, their complaints about the center were fundamentally based on the fact they disagreed with some of the findings. “They were very clear that they didn’t like the results of our analysis on AB 257,” Thornberg said. “They don’t like our results, hence, of course they’re attacking our motives.”

They likewise complained about research from Beacon Economics critiquing minimum wage increases and making the case for repealing Assembly Bill 5 restrictions on rideshare drivers, which again, reveals the left-wing ideological motives of the faculty and graduate students.

One thing underscoring this is the lack of complaints over the UC system’s labor centers. The state budget has funded the creation of new labor research centers at UC Davis, UC Irvine, UC Riverside, UC San Diego and UC Santa Cruz. Such centers already exist at UCLA, UC Berkeley and UC Merced.

The centers based at the universities coordinate with local unions for research guidance. The advisory committee of the labor center at UCLA, for example, includes representatives from the California Federation of Teachers and Service Employees International Union Local 721, which represents public employees.

Naturally, the research from these centers is virtually guaranteed to parrot union talking points.

Is that acceptable? Is that a proper function for the University of California?

Something tells us we won’t be seeing a similar letter from UC faculty demanding the shuttering of such biased and skewed centers.