Arithmetic Is Not A Hate Crime: UC Berkeley Prof Enters CA Governor’s Race

Photo: The Daily California/campaign site

India-West News Desk

LOS ANGELES, CA – Democratic candidate Satish Rao is positioning his campaign around education reform, government efficiency, and what he calls a return to practical, results-driven policymaking, arguing that California must focus on fundamentals while cutting through entrenched bureaucracy.

“Efficient, effective, and humane. That’s the test,” Rao said in a campaign statement outlining his approach to governance. “Every policy helps some and hurts others, so discussion is necessary and hard.”

Rao criticized the state’s political culture, saying outcomes are too often shaped by “tribalism, power, and narrow incentives” rather than evidence-based solutions. He pointed to education as a primary example of systemic failure.

“California has failed vulnerable students at a basic task: learning to read,” Rao said, adding that regions often dismissed in policy debates have produced stronger results. He argued that a shift back to foundational skills is essential. “The genius stroke? Words are made of letters -fundamentals, not magic. Arithmetic is not a hate crime.”

He also took aim at what he described as overcomplication in curriculum and instruction. “In California, basics are treated like villains and complexity like virtue,” Rao said, citing “a thousand-page, state-approved physics book that’s great for strong backs and publisher margins, but essentially unread.”

Drawing on his experience as a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, Rao highlighted what he sees as inefficiencies in higher education. “At UC Berkeley-where I work-non-academic staff compensation alone runs north of $30,000 per student,” he said. “That’s before you pay a single instructor, professor, TA, tutor, reader, lab assistant, or researcher.”

He argued that such spending patterns reflect deeper institutional issues. “The people who oversaw failure still control the institutions. That’s not a conspiracy; it’s bureaucracy,” Rao said, adding that “power concentrates in administration, and budgets follow power.”

While acknowledging Governor Gavin Newsom’s efforts, Rao suggested broader systemic constraints limit progress.

Rao’s campaign message is rooted in his personal story. Born overseas, he moved to the United States at age two and grew up in a small Texas town, where he began working early, selling newspaper subscriptions door-to-door before eventually managing his own route. His family later moved to the Seattle area, where he held a series of jobs, including restaurant work and lifeguarding, while completing high school.

After attending college in the Boston area, Rao began his career in technology, including writing assembly code for Microsoft, before transitioning into academia. For more than two decades, he has taught large courses in subjects such as artificial intelligence, probability, and discrete mathematics, while also participating in education policy and local school governance.