This post was updated on Dec. 8, at 11:19 p.m.
UCLA Chancellor Gene Block announced Friday the creation of a new administrative position to address issues of diversity, equity and inclusion on campus.
The new vice chancellor for equity, diversity and inclusion position was established after an internal report found UCLA’s policies and procedures for addressing claims of racial discrimination among faculty unclear and inadequate.
The new vice chancellor will have the resources and authority needed to ensure UCLA’s actions help create an inclusive campus for everyone, Block said in an emailed statement to the campus community Friday. The vice chancellor will report directly to Block.
“Although we have many dedicated individuals deeply committed to this work, I have come to see that we need a clear and powerful voice at the highest levels of the campus administration in order to advance our fundamental commitments to equity, diversity and full inclusion,” Block said in the statement.
Former California Supreme Court Justice Carlos Moreno headed the investigative report, which the university released to administrators and faculty Oct. 18. The report held that UCLA policies do not deter incidents of racial discrimination and bias on campus, since the majority of incidents evaluated in the report were addressed with informal processes instead of official investigations.
To combat the problem, the report recommended that UCLA appoint a discrimination officer to work with the Academic Senate and make sure UCLA’s policies and procedures for incidents of racial discrimination are reviewed, reformed and enforced. A discrimination officer has not been appointed yet, though the university is searching for a person to fill the position.
Tyrone Howard, a professor of education and one of several faculty members who initially pushed for the investigation, said he thinks UCLA needs to pursue both short-term and long-term goals to address structural discrimination on campus.
“These kinds of entrenched problems (are not solved with) just a single approach, you need multiple strategies,” Howard said.
He added that he thinks the new vice chancellor position shows administrators are listening to the report’s recommendations, and that UCLA needs people who are directly responsible for addressing issues of discrimination at its highest levels.
In response to the report’s recommendations, UCLA administrators have also already amended the Academic Senate’s bylaws to allow administrators to be more involved in the initial levels of investigations for discrimination claims.
The faculty committee responsible for implementing the report’s recommendations also met for the first time Thursday, Block said in the statement Friday.
Howard, a member of the implementation committee, said the committee discussed ways of evaluating discrimination policies, possible timelines for new procedures to go into effect, and strategies for ensuring that all academic departments are working to increase diversity.
He added that he thinks the new vice chancellor could help department leaders focus on recruiting and maintaining a more diverse faculty.
“Sometimes you need someone who’s advocating, who’s pushing, who’s asking questions, and who’s offering recommendations,” Howard said. “(You need) someone from outside of your department to say ‘look at the numbers (of women and faculty of color).’”
In June 2012, about 30 faculty members signed a letter to Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Scott Waugh, asking for an independent committee to review UCLA’s policies and procedures for responding to racial discrimination.
The faculty members requested the review partially in response to a high-profile racial discrimination lawsuit involving former UCLA surgeon Dr. Christian Head. Head, who said his colleagues at UCLA discriminated against him because he is black, was paid $4.5 million by the University of California Board of Regents in July, as part of the lawsuit’s settlement.
During the lawsuit, some faculty members thought that UCLA had tried to disassociate itself from the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, where Head worked. The faculty asked administrators to investigate and gain a better understanding of UCLA’s “campus racial climate,” instead of seeing Head’s case as an isolated incident.
After the report was released, some faculty members said the success of UCLA’s response to issues of racial discrimination would depend on continued action. Some faculty also said the report demonstrated UCLA’s need for a more diverse faculty, in addition to better enforcement of policies regarding racial discrimination.
Howard said he thinks structural problems cannot be “dismantled” overnight, but UCLA should still act with a sense of urgency to address discrimination.
“These things have been so set in stone for decades, they need chipping away,” Howard said. “It can take years to start to see some (significant) movement.”
Block said in the statement that UCLA will continue to outreach and make changes to improve its response to discrimination on campus.
Compiled by Amanda Schallert, Bruin senior staff.
There’s no place for discrimination on the UCLA campus. The faculty should be leading the way, not participating in it!
This is yet another example of the Left going all-out on an emotion-based crusade to put Political Correctness above normative thought and wisdom. The social brainwashing going on at our universities is truly unbelievable. Why parents are paying $30K+ per year to have their values wiped away from their children is beyond me. The narcissistic and idiotic way that our colleges and universities are being run is appalling and needs to stop. Rather than creating a new (probably $100K+ per year) position to monitor “diversity”, why not put that money into actual teaching? I suppose that I’m just asking too much here….
Response to Big…. Dear UCLA Student:
I comment with respect.These college
administrators are really something. With their values they are profoundly
harming American education and our society in general. Your chancellor delights
in announcing spending several more hundred thousand dollars a year of your
money pushing more anti-intellectual and anti -American values into the UCLA
community. Millions of us Americans off campus understand how destructive and
wasteful it is.
Our Universities’ core role is to teach and
encourage American values, and yes, place them in context with other value
systems. They are there to help students understand why America was shaped by
the values of the Judeao- Christian religions and the Enlightenment. They are
there to show the morality and glory of our Constitution, our capitalistic
economic system, the wisdom and ethics of the Bible, and the exceptional nature
of our country. They are there to help you understand the American
Trinity- Liberty/In God We Trust/ and E Pluribus Unum.
Your Chancellor has an utterly different agenda.
It pervades most universities. Your chancellor is there to indoctrinate you
into the value system of Leftism. It rejects every part of the American
trinity. Almost every sentence from his letter to the community spews forth the
toxic ideology that came from 19th century Germany and Britain and from core
thinkers like Karl Marx. He is there to teach you the Trinity of Class/Race and
Gender, that values , good and evil and character don’t matter. What matters is
how much skin pigment you have, whether or not you have testicles or ovaries or
like to sleep with guys or girls; whether you’re rich or poor. This is the
world of Leftism, the world of our universities.
What Mr. Block means for example about diversity
is truly Orwellian. What he means is a calculation of how many Leftists on
campus have testicles, brown skin, ovaries, a grandfather from central
America,or enjoy same sex intercourse. He is not talking American
diversity-namely how many people on campus love the traditional values of
Constitutional limited government classic liberalism versus those of the
Leftist Democratic party or how many students love the values of evangelical
Christianity versus the values of the radically secular New York Times oped
page. That is true diversity.
Here we are in a country that has brought more
kindness, liberty, good will and bounty to more humans than in all of history.
Here we are with campuses full of decent good Americans trying to learn the
greatness of our country and skills to succeed and your university leaders are
telling you horrible things. They are telling you live in a dark place, a place
full of black, brown, gay, Muslim, woman and native American-hating bigoted
idiots. It’s classic Leftist trope- Balkanization of a society; creation of
strong sense of victim-hood. They are telling you America is essentially an
evil place full of greedy capitalists and uncaring TeaParty Republicans. They
are telling you that the Leviathan State is beautiful, that people are
basically good and the millions of unproductive unaccountable government
workers will bring true justice to us all.
Hence, it’s their job as college leaders to spend
huge sums of money to root out this American value system. And they do it with
the tools of tyranny- with speech codes, shouting down conservative
speakers, banning professors with American values , ignoring our great
texts like the Constitution, Federalist Papers and Bible, glorifying un
-American notions of multiculturalism, anti-capitalism, Statism and radical
secularism. This is not Kansas anymore students. Stepping on campus you leave
America in many ways. In essence, you’re in a leftist indoctrination center.
What an utter shame for you and our great country.
George
Owell, Karl, and Vladamir would have been proud of your Chancellor’s letter to
the community. The only phases missing were “white privilege”
and “structural racism”. I’m sure they are in his toxic
lexicon. Millions of us reject your Chancellor’s values and the values shared
by most of his ilk.
Dear UCLA Student:
I comment with respect.These college
administrators are really something. With their values they are profoundly
harming American education and our society in general. Your chancellor delights
in announcing spending several more hundred thousand dollars a year of your
money pushing more anti-intellectual and anti -American values into the UCLA
community. Millions of us Americans off campus understand how destructive and
wasteful it is.
Our Universities’ core role is to teach and
encourage American values, and yes, place them in context with other value
systems. They are there to help students understand why America was shaped by
the values of the Judeao- Christian religions and the Enlightenment. They are
there to show the morality and glory of our Constitution, our capitalistic
economic system, the wisdom and ethics of the Bible, and the exceptional nature
of our country. They are there to help you understand the American
Trinity- Liberty/In God We Trust/ and E Pluribus Unum.
Your Chancellor has an utterly different agenda.
It pervades most universities. Your chancellor is there to indoctrinate you
into the value system of Leftism. It rejects every part of the American
trinity. Almost every sentence from his letter to the community spews forth the
toxic ideology that came from 19th century Germany and Britain and from core
thinkers like Karl Marx. He is there to teach you the Trinity of Class/Race and
Gender, that values , good and evil and character don’t matter. What matters is
how much skin pigment you have, whether or not you have testicles or ovaries or
like to sleep with guys or girls; whether you’re rich or poor. This is the
world of Leftism, the world of our universities.
What Mr. Block means for example about diversity
is truly Orwellian. What he means is a calculation of how many Leftists on
campus have testicles, brown skin, ovaries, a grandfather from central
America,or enjoy same sex intercourse. He is not talking American
diversity-namely how many people on campus love the traditional values of
Constitutional limited government classic liberalism versus those of the
Leftist Democratic party or how many students love the values of evangelical
Christianity versus the values of the radically secular New York Times oped
page. That is true diversity.
Here we are in a country that has brought more
kindness, liberty, good will and bounty to more humans than in all of history.
Here we are with campuses full of decent good Americans trying to learn the
greatness of our country and skills to succeed and your university leaders are
telling you horrible things. They are telling you live in a dark place, a place
full of black, brown, gay, Muslim, woman and native American-hating bigoted
idiots. It’s classic Leftist trope- Balkanization of a society; creation of
strong sense of victim-hood. They are telling you America is essentially an
evil place full of greedy capitalists and uncaring TeaParty Republicans. They
are telling you that the Leviathan State is beautiful, that people are
basically good and the millions of unproductive unaccountable government
workers will bring true justice to us all.
Hence, it’s their job as college leaders to spend
huge sums of money to root out this American value system. And they do it with
the tools of tyranny- with speech codes, shouting down conservative
speakers, banning professors with American values , ignoring our great
texts like the Constitution, Federalist Papers and Bible, glorifying un
-American notions of multiculturalism, anti-capitalism, Statism and radical
secularism. This is not Kansas anymore students. Stepping on campus you leave
America in many ways. In essence, you’re in a leftist indoctrination center.
What an utter shame for you and our great country.
George
Owell, Karl, and Vladamir would have been proud of your Chancellor’s letter to
the community. The only phases missing were “white privilege”
and “structural racism”. I’m sure they are in his toxic
lexicon. Millions of us reject your Chancellor’s values and the values shared
by most of his ilk.
Here’s a “no brainer”, why not fire those that actively participate and allow the discrimination to happen in the first place??? For UCLA it is so much easier to whip out the checkbook and write a check to the victims then to hold those evil doers accountable for their actions, thus awarding the inappropriate behavior and continuing to be a champion for discriminatory practices. Creating a new position is absolutely ridiculous. Start at the HR office and create the diversity there, then go to the Affirmative Action office, and so on, and so forth………… Use common sense people and stop bending these poor students and their parents over and bleeding their pocket books dry for increased tuition every year and giving full scholarships to rich kids.