On Nov. 19, student activists barged into a restricted area of
Covel Commons where the Regents of the University of California
were holding their bimonthly meeting. In so doing, they
disrespected the standards of both civil dialogue and the
democratic process of our country.
The rage of the activists can be attributed to two key
issues.
First, the majority of the regents’ meetings are held at
UC San Francisco, the only UC campus that lacks an undergraduate
student body. The protesters asserted that the regents must work
with students, not in spite of them. This problem could be solved
by geographically redistributing the sites of the meetings so as to
encourage student input and constructive dialogue.
But how did the students tackle this obstacle? Instead of
calling for a closer student-regent association in a respectful,
civil manner, they stormed past the police stanchion line and
demanded that they be heard. But they were already being heard.
According to Kendra Carney, president of the Students for Academic
Freedom, dozens of student envoys were present at the meeting and
close to 15 actually spoke during the public comments segment. But,
animated as they were, the protesters erupted in a fit of
aggression.
What precisely did this accomplish? By acting almost like
irrational rebels, the student activists gave the regents good
reason not only to move their meetings away from the students, but
to close those meetings to the students altogether.
Yet what seems to be just a tactical error on the part of
well-meaning protesters turns out to be a central element of a
veiled agenda. In fact, one of the organizations in attendance was
UC Berkeley’s By Any Means Necessary, whose statement of
purpose calls for a “new, militant, mass civil rights
movement.” The term “by any means necessary” was
used by Malcolm X as a call for violence.
This is where the second demand comes in ““ the resignation
or removal of Ward Connerly from his position as a UC regent. It is
this request that betrays BAMN’s intolerance and bigotry. The
fight for integration and equality begins, according to an
announcement on its Web site, “with removing Ward Connerly
from the University of California Board of Regents. Connerly,
author of Proposition 54, is a conservative black businessman and
1993 appointee of former Republican Governor Pete
Wilson.”
So is it Connerly’s politics, skin color or his career
that makes him the prime target? The answer is made clear after a
brief examination of BAMN’s Web site ““ By Any Means
Necessary is a leftist organization that preaches and practices
political discrimination on college campuses.
Sascha Cohen, a USC student, told the Daily Bruin, “We
feel he’s trying to turn back the clock on civil rights, and
we think it should move forward.” And Yvette Felarca of
Berkeley’s chapter of BAMN, taking the debate to a new
personal level, said, “We want to make Connerly a liability
for any business, individual or government that does business with
him”(News, “Students call for Connerly’s
resignation, Nov. 20).
But the issue here is neither political nor personal. By taking
up the position of a regent, one does not surrender his right to an
opinion and free speech. The only qualification for being a good
regent is to serve the students well. And if this is the standard
against which Ward Connerly is measured, then he has performed his
duties masterfully. Connerly, in fact, has reliably voted against
fee increases and, according to him, “probably voted with the
student regent more than any of the other regents
combined.”
If student activists could point to unethical or illegal
behavior in Ward Connerly’s record, or cite a violation of
regent policy, then the demonstration last Wednesday would have
been legitimate. However, the only crime that the protesters could
cite was the crime of being a conservative.
But BAMN hasn’t stopped at Connerly. According to its Web
site, it has launched “a national boycott of Coors beer for
its substantial financial support of Connerly’s campaigns,
including Prop. 54.” The alleged contributions, however, came
not from Coors Brewing Company, but rather from its owner Joe
Coors, who died last year. BAMN has attacked not only Ward
Connerly’s supporters but also the employees of his
supporters, whose jobs and livelihoods have come under fire as a
result.
Protesters at UCLA eliminated any chances of a civilized
discourse between regents and students. Even beyond that, they
painted a morbid picture of a repressive monolith ““ a
prejudiced UC student body that has, in the name of racial justice,
adopted political injustice.
The battle here is not between the morality and immorality of
affirmative action, Proposition 54 and conservatism. The protesters
have begun a battle not against another opinion, but rather against
opinion itself. They have advocated brute force over civility,
suppression over freedom, and bigotry over tolerance.
Hovannisian is a first-year history and philosophy student.
E-mail him at ghovannisian@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to
viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.