Rallies coincide with regents meeting

  KEITH ENRIQUEZ/ Daily Bruin Senior Staff Yvette
Falarka marches for By Any Means Necessary, a student
activist group trying to reverse the ban on affirmative action in
the UC system. The protest took place outside the UC Board of
Regents meeting.

By Afshin Marashi
Daily Bruin Contributor

A coalition of students, staff and community members protested
outside the UC Regents meeting at Covel Commons on Wednesday,
demanding reversal of the ban on affirmative action.

More than 50 protesters belonging to a coalition called By Any
Means Necessary came from across the state and descended onto the
UCLA campus, hoping those inside Covel would hear their
demands.

“There’s been a dramatic decline of people of color
at the flagship campuses,” said Hoku Jeffrey, a UC Berkeley
student and chair of Berkeley’s BAMN chapter. “The UC
system has lead the nationwide attack on affirmative
action.”

The Regents passed SP-1 and SP-2 in 1995, ending the
consideration of race and gender in UC admissions and hiring. A
year later, California voters passed Proposition 209, terminating
the use of affirmative action in all state institutions.

The end of affirmative action is creating systemwide segregation
across the UC, many of the protesters said, because schools with
more competitive admissions policies are becoming more ethnically
homogenous, while less competitive campuses are becoming the only
schools with significant numbers of people of color.

“There’s now a two-tiered system of higher education
across the University of California,” said Doug Lenox, a BAMN
member. “People of color are being funneled into UC Riverside
and Irvine. Berkeley and UCLA are the hardest hit.”

Jennifer Ounjian-Auque, coordinator of the newly formed UCLA
branch of BAMN, said activism at UCLA is entering a new stage.

“We’re using this rally to form a coalition at UCLA
by recruiting people and groups,” she said.

Wednesday’s rally marked an escalation in the level of
activism by UC students, according to protest organizers.

“This is the big push, the final showdown,” Lenox
said as he and others called for a “new civil rights
movement” across the nation. For example, students in
Michigan and Florida have also challenged recent repeals of
affirmative action in those states.

The call for a new civil rights movement echoed throughout the
day.

“We follow in the tradition of militance of the first
civil rights movement, in the tradition of Martin Luther King and
Malcolm X,” said Andrea Wilbon, a BAMN member.
“We’re building a movement for equality in
society.”

While there is popular support for the repeal of the ban, Wilbon
said, more people need to show it.

“We have majority support, but we have to make that
private support more public,” she said.

The coalition brought a petition with 8,000 signatures in
support of a repeal. Those signatures were gathered within two
months, Wilbon said, including 500 signatures at UCLA Wednesday
morning.

Beyond petitions, BAMN members pondered other forms of
activism.

“We want them to realize that, if the ban is maintained,
we’ll do whatever is necessary,” Wilbon said. “A
student strike would be a step forward.”

Ounjian-Auque said BAMN is encouraging high school students to
participate in the movement. With the end of affirmative action,
she said high school students have the most to lose.

“It’s their future,” she said.
“They’re the ones that are going to have a hard time.
This movement is for our brothers and sisters.”

Others decried what they called the ban on affirmative action on
curriculum at the university, claiming ethnic studies courses are
being curtailed.

“These departments were won out of the struggles of the
’60s,” said Vincent Kukua, a BAMN activist. “Now
they are under attack.”

Spectators at the rally had mixed feelings about the
protest.

“I’ll join the movement,” said Monique
Keshishian, a first-year business economics student.
“It’s something I believe in. We have to fight for
it.”

But Ryan Fong, a first-year electrical engineering student,
wasn’t so sure about protesting.

“I’m not sure if I’m for or against it, but
they can protest if they want,” he said.