Submission: Diversity requirement critical for future campus governance

Dear Colleagues,

We write to categorically support the proposed College of Letters and Science undergraduate diversity requirement, an amendment to Divisional Regulation A-458 (C). The College Faculty Executive Committee, the Undergraduate Council and the UCLA Academic Senate’s Legislative Assembly have all supported this requirement following extensive vetting and debate. Nevertheless, a small group of opponents has undermined this democratic process, taking unprecedented steps to impede the adoption of this curricular change by forcing a campus-wide faculty vote.

As the Academic Senate committee charged with enhancing diversity at UCLA and assuring equal opportunity for all, we are extremely troubled by the hostility and vehement obstruction with which the diversity requirement has been met. We strongly encourage you, our colleagues, to ratify the proposed requirement in the upcoming vote. Your support is critical not only for our students and the broader UCLA community, but also for the future of faculty governance.

UCLA Academic Senate Committee on Diversity and Equal Opportunity (CODEO)

Marissa Lopez, committee chair, associate professor of English and Chicana/o studies and associate director of Chicano Studies Research Center.

Corinne Bendersky, Anderson School of Management

Tara Browner, Departments of Ethnomusicology and American Indian Studies

Esteban Dell’Angelica, Department of Human Genetics

Alicia Gaspar de Alba, chair of LGBT Studies Program, Departments of Chicana/o Studies, English and Gender Studies

Darnell Hunt, Department of Sociology and director of Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies

Rose Maly, Department of Family Medicine

Claudia Mitchell-Kernan, professor emeritus in the Department of Anthropology

Russell Thornton, Department of Anthropology

Published by Ryan Nelson

Ryan Nelson was the Opinion editor from 2015-16 and a member of the Bruin Editorial Board from 2013-16. He was an opinion columnist from 2012-14 and assistant opinion editor in 2015. Alongside other Bruin reporters, Nelson covered undocumented students for the Bridget O'Brien Scholarship Foundation. He also writes about labor issues, healthcare and the environment.

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2 Comments

  1. If these professors — who make their living from taxpayer and student tuition dollars by peddling racial grievances and identity-based victimization — are for this requirement, clearly it is a bad thing to the university. Forcing students to take their brainwashing doctrine would be positively harmful to the minds of our students. These professors are responsible of preparing an entire generation of students who jump to take offense rather than thinking critically, demanding to be coddled and given special treatment.

  2. What is undemocratic about having a faculty-wide vote?

    Forcing students to take these ethnocentric classes does nothing to improve their education. The classes are of dubious benefit anyway. I would guess that majoring in these studies-which do nothing but provide teaching jobs for its graduates, leaves students unprepared for life in the real world (unless you want to be a professor, of course).

    PS: I can’t believe they are still calling it Chicano Studies. When I was growing up in the West LA area about a mile from the UCLA campus, Chicanos is what the kids in the gangs called themselves. They were the guys who wore khakis and Sir Guy shirts. My wife, who is Mexican, would be insulted if someone called her a Chicana.

    How absurd our universities have become.

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