Students rally for affirmative action

  LIISA SPINK Ryan Smith voices his
support at an anti-SP-1 and 2 rally held in Meyerhoff Park
Wednesday.

By Barbara Ortutay
Daily Bruin Senior Staff

Counting down to next week’s regents meeting, students and
community leaders gathered in Meyerhoff Park Wednesday protesting
the lack of affirmative action in UC admissions and hiring.

More than 100 members of the UCLA and Los Angeles community
rallied to denounce SP-1 and 2, policies the regents passed in 1995
that ended the use of race, gender and ethnicity in university
admissions and hiring.

Despite recent discussion by some members of the board, the
policies’ repeal was not put on the agenda for next
week’s regents meeting. But African Student Union Chair
Karren Lane said it is within the board’s bylaws to add
it.

“Several regents have come out publicly to say that
it’s not the time. We have to let them know that it is
time,” Lane said to the crowd.

Lane and other students speaking at the rally recalled last
spring’s hate crimes ““ when offices in Kerckhoff Hall
were vandalized and a white man kicked an African American woman
down the steps of Campbell Hall while yelling racial slurs ““
as examples of ways the end of affirmative action has hurt minority
communities.

“But the most violent of these crimes is the disappearance
of students of color on campus,” said Elias Enciso, internal
vice president of the Undergraduate Students Association
Council.

Participants, who opened the rally by joining hands in prayer,
at one point chanted “education is a right, not just for the
rich and white.”

“We come together as community leaders in agreement that
this should be rescinded,” said William Martin, a pastor and
a candidate for the Inglewood school board.

Though students emphasized SP-1 and its negative effects on
admissions as main reasons for the protests, SP-2, which affects UC
hiring practices, was not forgotten.

The issue of faculty diversity is important for students
regardless of what classes they take, said Jamie Jefferson, finance
coordinator for ASU.

The Affirmative Action Coalition, along with students from
across the state, is planning protests and a strike for the
regents’ meeting at UCLA next Wednesday and Thursday.