The original version of this article contained multiple errors and has been changed. See the bottom of the article for more information.
In multiple previous advisory votes, the UCLA College of Letters and Sciences faculty defeated proposed diversity requirements, including a decisive rejection two years ago. This past October, 24 percent of the College faculty voted “yes” and 22 percent voted “no.” This weakness of support for the requirement is striking because the entire discussion leading up to the vote was one-sided. The Committee on Rules and Jurisdiction criticized the official omission of any pro and con arguments on the October ballot. A full and fair informed faculty vote – following clear Senate rules – is the only way to know if there is an unambiguous mandate for the largest redirection of our curricular requirements and teaching resources in many decades.
Requirement advocates have worked very hard to prevent a Senate vote. Their assertion of “curricular autonomy” – that faculty outside of the College should be excluded from decision-making which primarily concerns undergraduates – is misleading. The issue is campus-wide. The main motivation given for the diversity requirement is “improving the campus climate.” However, as evidenced by the Moreno report, most of the racial incidents that revived the push for a diversity requirement were not caused by undergraduates.
The rules are clear: the Senate alone exercises ultimate authority over the most important academic decisions at UCLA, specifically including graduation requirements. When the Legislative Assembly and the Undergraduate Council, with membership across the College and professional schools, voted on this requirement, no questions were raised concerning their undermining of College “autonomy.”
Requirement advocates argued that the Senate ladder faculty should delegate this major decision to the hundred representatives who participated in the Legislative Assembly meeting in November. But in this important matter, we do not know whether they, or the 29 “yes” vote plurality in the College, accurately reflected the will of the remaining 2300 Senate faculty members who have not yet been allowed to vote. It is now time to find out. We urge all faculty to consider the arguments on both sides of this requirement and to exercise their right to vote. The official diversity requirement website, which includes roughly 10 pages of pro arguments, is currently: https://ccle.ucla.edu/course/view/college-diversity-initiative.
For the other side of the issue, the unofficial website: www.realdiversity.org will present con perspectives on the diversity requirement.
Thank you for your consideration.
Professors David Aboody, William Allen, Leila Beckwith, David Bensimon, Dean Bok, Louis Bouchard, Herbert Davidson, Kym Faull, Peter Felker, Eric Gans, Walter Gekelman, Brad Hansen, Gary Hansen, Jascha Kessler, Carla Koehler, Gail Lenhoff, Daniel Lowenstein, Matthew Malkan, Joseph Manson, George Morales, Daniel Neuhauser, Steven Nusinowitz, Lee Ohanian, Judea Pearl, Claudio Pellegrini, Seth Putterman, David Rapoport, Benjamin Schwartz, Thomas Schwartz, Marc Trachtenberg, Stanley Trimble, Ronald Vroon, Romain Wacziarg, Shimon Weiss, Willima Zame, Benjamin Zuckerman
Correction: Because of an editing error on the part of The Bruin, a sentence was included about the vote website having seven pro arguments and one con argument that was not intended by the authors. In addition, there was a 29 “yes” vote plurality in the College, not a 24 percent “yes” vote plurality.
The more that this issue is discussed, the more we realize that proponents of the diversity requirement used misleading tactics and arguments to push this initiative through without the proper support and procedures in place. What amounted to a campaign to circumnavigate the process and the see it through this time, may well backfire and cause it to fail with no future support.
I would hope that Bruins are smart enough to resist the labels of “bigot” and “racist” as a way to pressure the UCLA community into supporting something that is becoming less to do with the initiative’s goals and more to do with a free academic environment, exclusion of the senate and its rules, and fiscal health of the university.