Editorial: Push for diversity-related GE requirement is student-led

For UCLA students, the value of inclusion speaks loudly. In recent years, students have echoed concerns about a hostile campus climate; they have lobbied for an environment on campus in which any individual can feel respected regardless of background or circumstance.

The General Education requirement has been a central focus of student efforts, and the rhetoric around that topic both at UCLA and elsewhere should reflect that fact.

A recent editorial from the Los Angeles Register framed UCLA’s attempt to pass a new requirement as “administrators’ diversity obsession,” when in fact it would not be in motion without student demand.

For more than two decades now, students have organized around a diversity-related requirement. They have expressed repeatedly that they believe such a requirement would be a salient step toward improving community relations at UCLA.

In 2011, 62.9 percent of students voting in the undergraduate student government election expressed that they wanted a diversity-related General Education requirement through an advisory vote.

This past March, the Muslim Student Association issued a statement, which was endorsed by 15 other student organizations and various student government offices and councilmembers, again calling for the institution of such a requirement.

And in a show of support for the move across slate lines, all three Academic Affairs commissioner candidates in last week’s Undergraduate Students Association Council election included advocating for the diversity requirement as a main part of their platforms.

While UCLA faculty voted down similar requirements on three occasions, passage of the requirement was hindered in part by faculty’s ambivalence, with a faculty voter turnout of less than 30 percent in 2012. But when combating a poor campus climate, it is student concerns and interests that should be the primary focus. Ultimately, General Education requirements apply to students and affect their experiences the most. When students consistently ask for the adoption of a requirement, the faculty should respond with support.

Nobody is proposing that establishing a course requirement will singularly solve tensions and ills in campus community relations. But it remains a concrete step in the right direction, and downplaying the requirement as a public relations stunt is ignorant and unfair.

A diversity-related requirement is not about being politically correct or creating a facade that conceals division and conflicts on campus. It’s about promoting knowledge, as a university should, of the diversity of cultures that continues to shape our identities and experiences.

This board believes that while enrolling in a single course is not an end-all and be-all solution, institutionalizing a requirement that specifically frames such classes as related to diversity, equity and inclusion can help raise real consciousness about these topics.

The requirement provides an outlet for students to critically think about issues of diversity and equity and to respectfully discuss them with their peers in a classroom setting. It shows students who have said they do not feel welcomed that the university values their diversity.