Tan is the USAC academic affairs commissioner.
By Bryant Tan
A year ago today, thousands of students gathered at UCLA to call
for the repeal of UC Regents Standing Policies 1 and 2, which
eliminated the consideration of race, ethnicity and gender in
university admissions and hiring. More than a call for the repeal,
it was a call for the state as a public institution to act on
injustices that exist at UCLA and in the UC system today.
Most of us came to UCLA in post SP-1 and post-2, and so
we’re used to seeing a lack of diversity on our campus. But
there was a time not long ago that this university did a better job
at maintaining diversity, and in educating a student body more
reflective of California and Los Angeles demographics. The number
of underrepresented students at UCLA has dropped over 50 percent,
and people are scrambling to make up that difference.
Critics talk about affirmative action being a Band-Aid and how
it doesn’t address the root causes of the problems in our
public education system. But they forget that Band-Aids help to
heal, and that affirmative action helped create greater equal
opportunities for qualified students to attend institutions like
UCLA. We are no closer to equal opportunity without affirmative
action.
As your USAC academic affairs commissioner, I along with
concerned students in the Affirmative Action Coalition, have helped
to shape the policy on how admissions will work to address the lack
of diversity on our campus.
This year, we have helped to push a more holistic review of
applicants, recognizing that our merits are not only reflected in
our test scores and GPAs. But comprehensive review as a UC policy
will not likely make substantive improvements in diversity when
admissions numbers are released. As defined by the UC, it is far
from improving how admissions works, and in many ways reaffirms the
status quo.
We have also helped encourage a dialogue and critical analysis
of standardized testing, particularly with the SAT. It is already
conclusive that the SAT is an imperfect predictor of college
success, and contains inherent cultural bias against women and
people of color. Is the solution another standardized test that
will continue with similar faults? I hope not.
The whole debate about access to education from an admissions
standpoint is very convoluted these days. And just around the
corner lurks something that will make our commitment to diversity
even more confusing and difficult.
The Racial Privacy Initiative, which may appear on
November’s ballot, will make it virtually impossible to track
how policy affects different racial and ethnic communities because
it prevents even requesting the information unless the state
legislature decides a given query serves a “compelling”
government interest. But if you choose not to express your race or
ethnicity, that option is already given to you.
Expressing your race and ethnicity ““ your identity ““
is not a bad thing, but being censored from expressing it is. The
RPI will prevent simple fact-finding about the effects of policy on
different communities. So for those of us who base our opinions on
facts and statistics, any factual way to prove something like
racism will be nearly impossible. It will further prevent our
ability to even gauge diversity, limiting statistical collection to
rare occasions determined by the state and leaving most of us to
determine it by our eyes. Let me ask you this: By your eye count,
how many black students would you say are on this campus?
March 14 is an important date at UCLA. For many of us who took
part in the mass demonstration and takeover of Royce Hall, it will
forever be a day that students and community members reclaimed this
university. Though it may be the most visible of our work, protests
and demonstrations are only a small fraction of what we do. It was
that and our daily statewide organizing behind the scenes that
enabled us to cause the eventual repeal of SP-1 and 2 in May of
2001.
The daily behind-the-scenes organizing continues today. It
occurs when USAC and student organizers negotiate with faculty and
administrators about important policy issues such as hate crimes,
admissions, curriculum, housing and parking. It occurs when we try
to organize students to demand a diversity requirement, or to lower
housing costs or to save BruinGo! And it occurs as we continue to
address the ever-pressing need to make UCLA more diverse. For
nearly half a decade, UCLA has turned away a disproportionate
number of underrepresented minorities. Even those who do get
admitted often choose to go to other universities because of more
proven commitments to diversity. We need to continue to change the
tide.
Change at this university can happen. It needs people like you
to help create that change, and people in the Affirmative Action
Coalition and on Student Empowerment! in USAC to help facilitate
that change. As Gandhi said, “You must be the change you wish
to see in the world.”
Today may be a quiet day on campus. But remember March 14, 2001
and all that it represented. Diversity. Equal opportunity. Student
power. Social change. These are Student Empowerment! and the
Affirmative Action Coalition’s commitments to you, to the
university, to all our communities and to the world.