Editorial: Faculty should vote on new diversity course requirement

Starting Friday, the faculty of the College of Letters and Science will have the chance to vote for a diversity course requirement for its undergraduates for the fourth time in more than 25 years.

In the past, only small fractions – around 20 and 30 percent of faculty – have voted. Those faculty who did vote failed, three times, to implement a diversity-related requirement.

Friday, there are no more excuses: Faculty must vote to pass this requirement once and for all.

The need for a diversity requirement has always been there. UCLA, despite being one of the University of California’s flagship campuses, is one of the last UC schools without a diversity-related course requirement for its undergraduates. Rejecting this diversity requirement, after so much work has been put into bringing it back and developing it, would be a slap in the face to the faculty and administrators who took the time to craft it and the students who for years have been asking for a better campus climate and understanding from their teachers.

Unlike the past two times the college has voted on a diversity requirement, faculty and administrators have taken meticulous care to ensure this current proposal’s financial and logistical feasibility. The faculty, students and administrators who developed this most current proposal took measures so that adding this diversity requirement would not burden students with another course to complete or hold them back from graduation. Students would be able to fulfill the diversity requirement with any number of major or general education courses.

The committee has planned funds for 25 new courses, two endowed lectureships, more teaching assistants, retooling of existing courses and faculty retreats – all to give more options for students to complete the diversity requirement and foster a larger focus on diversity within faculty. Better yet, the funding for all this wouldn’t come from individual academic departments and wouldn’t touch the budgets for existing courses.

Clearly, both administrative and faculty leaders are behind this proposal, so it’s time the rest of faculty do their part and cast their votes. And there is no more time for waiting – if faculty fail to approve this current diversity proposal, it will likely set us back another two or more years before we ever see another proposal.

We can’t wait another two years. Faculty, now is the time to cast your vote and pass this proposal.