Malala at UC Davis: When the Chancellor sits on the board of a defense contractor and hosts a peace icon (#460)

When Malala Yousafzai walked onto the stage at the Mondavi Center on November 18, 2025, UC Davis wrapped itself in the language of moral courage.

The Chancellor’s Colloquium billed the evening as a conversation between a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and UC Davis Chancellor Gary S. May, celebrating a woman who risked her life to speak out against injustice.

But outside the glow of the Mondavi Center, the huge entertainment center at UC Davis, a different reality hangs over the campus.

Just months earlier, the UC Davis School of Law suspended the Law Students Association (LSA) after it passed a boycott, divestment, and sanctions–style resolution targeting entities tied to Israel.

The administration justified this as enforcing anti-discrimination policy.

Students, including many who support Palestinian rights, have described it instead as a continuation of “silencing Palestinian speech.”

Against that backdrop, May’s celebratory social-media posts about hosting Malala, an icon of fearless dissent, were, for many of us, hard to reconcile with events on campus.

The Leidos problem

This tension is not just about one student government decision. It sits on top of a deeper concern:

Chancellor May’s long-standing role on the board of Leidos,

a major defense and surveillance contractor

with ties to U.S. and Israeli military operations.

Leidos describes itself as a major defense and intelligence contractor, with substantial work tied to U.S. military and security operations - work that is deeply entangled with the conflicts and human-rights concerns now animating campus activism.

In recent months, some students and community members have voiced concern that Chancellor May’s position on the Leidos board creates, at minimum, an appearance of conflicting interests when he responds to pro-Palestinian advocacy on campus.

I share that concern. I do not support Chancellor May’s continued membership on the Leidos Board of Directors.

In my view, it represents both:

• A conflict of interest, in my view, because he is simultaneously responsible for leading a public university and receiving compensation from a company whose products and services are closely intertwined with conflicts at the heart of current student protest.

  
  

• A conflict of commitment, because serving on a high-level corporate board is not a modest side gig. It demands time, loyalty, and attention that should, in my opinion, belong fully to the university community he leads.

UC’s own policies on conflicts of interest and commitment are not just about whether something is technically legal or properly disclosed.

They’re also about trust, about avoiding situations where outside roles reasonably cause the public to question whether decisions are being made in the best interests of the institution and its students.

This is one of those situations.

Hypocrisy - or just deeply troubling optics?

Defenders of the administration will say: inviting Malala to campus and enforcing UC policy on discrimination are not contradictory. They will argue that the LSA resolution crossed a line by targeting people and institutions linked to Israel, and that the university would have responded the same way regardless of May’s board memberships.

Perhaps.

But the appearance still matters.

When students see that their chancellor receives compensation from a company closely associated with defense and security work, and at the same time watch their peers face suspension over pro-Palestinian organizing, it is hardly surprising that some question whose interests the institution is prioritizing.

When that same chancellor then highlights Malala’s visit as proof of the university’s moral courage, many observers see a striking contradiction, and some describe that gap as hypocritical.

Malala’s story is not about safe, officially sanctioned speech. It is about speaking truth to power when institutions would prefer silence.

To celebrate her on stage while, at the same time, taking disciplinary actions that many students experience as suppressing pro-Palestinian speech risks turning her courage into a marketing asset rather than the moral challenge she represents.

What should change?

I do not write this to demonize Gary May as an individual.

The problem is bigger than one person.

It is a symptom of a broader drift in higher education, where corporate board seats and defense-industry partnerships are treated as signs of thought leadership rather than sources of ethical tension.

Still, leadership is about choices.

If we want students to believe that UC Davis is truly committed to human rights, free inquiry, and ethical governance, several steps seem necessary:

• In light of these tensions, I believe Chancellor May should seriously consider stepping down from the Leidos board; if he chooses not to, many will reasonably argue that he ought to step aside as chancellor.

• It is very difficult, in my view, to credibly lead a public research university through a crisis over war and occupation while simultaneously receiving compensation from a company so closely enmeshed in the related defense and security apparatus.

• The suspension of the Law Students Association should be independently reviewed.

  
  

  • Not only for legal compliance, but to reassure the community that anti-discrimination rules are not being applied in ways that disproportionately burden unpopular political positions.

    
    

  • This should be done with student participation, to ensure that UC policies are not being weaponized to punish unpopular political positions.

    
    

  • If the LSA resolution genuinely violated anti-discrimination rules, that conclusion should be transparently explained and applied consistently across cases.

• The UC system should adopt stricter norms for senior administrators’ outside corporate roles.

  
  

  • This should be done especially in defense, surveillance, and industries that intersect directly with contested human-rights issues.

    
    

  • In my view, disclosure alone is not enough; some outside roles sit in deep tension with the mission and values of a public university.

At the Mondavi Center, Malala reminded us that courage is not a brand; it is a practice.

Courage means taking risks, telling inconvenient truths, and listening when those with less power demand accountability.

Right now, many UC Davis students, including those who care deeply about Palestinian lives, do not feel that same courage from their chancellor or their institution.

Until we confront the dissonance between who we put on our stages and where our leaders sit on corporate boards, that distrust will only deepen.

Malala came here to talk about education and justice.

The question now is whether UC Davis and Chancellor May are prepared to learn from her, or merely to use her image while carrying on with business as usual.

#bunyipsbooksbeyond