Michael V. Drake

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Michael V. Drake

Michael V. Drake is a United States physician and currently serves as the chancellor of the University of California, Irvine.^[1] Prior to his appointment at UCI, he had a dual appointment at the Office of the President of the University of California as the director of policy for the five University of California medical schools and other health sciences programs, while continuing to hold his long-held appointment at University of California, San Francisco in the department of ophthalmology. Dr. Drake, 56, was a vocal opponent of Proposition 209, often leading forums on the UCSF campus to garner opposition to it. He is an African-American physician who graduated from Stanford University and attended medical school at UCSF. After an ophthalmology residency, he practiced mainly academic medicine, at one point overseeing $10 million dollars in grants. He served as the director of admissions at UCSF medical school and sat on the resident selection committee for the department of ophthalmology prior to his appointment at the Office of the President. His salary at the Office of the President was $350,000, which is his current salary as the UCI chancellor, although the prior chancellor's salary had been $70,000 less prior to his filling the vacancy, according to University of California, Irvine press releases in Today@UCI from May 26, 2005, the day he was appointed chancellor.

[edit] Controversy

During Drake’s tenure U.C. Irvine has been “rocked… by charges of an anti-Semitic atmosphere and in 2008 was described as “still reeling from a student-organized ‘Holocaust in the Holy Land’ week in 2006 that equated Israel with Nazi Germany.”^[2]

In 2008 students at Irvine signed a letter objecting to Drake’s participation in a national Hillel conference, “Imagining a More Civil Society: The University and the Jewish Community.” The letter read: “"Jewish students at UCI have been subjected to hateful anti-Semitic programs and speakers on a regular basis, and yet Chancellor Drake and his administration have never once condemned any of it," said the letter. "In fact, we understand that, according to Chancellor Drake, anti-Semitism is not even a problem on his campus. In light of his conduct, we believe that Chancellor Drake has not earned the right to be a speaker at a Hillel event focusing on how to create an environment that is civil, respectful and tolerant."^[3]