UCLA needs motivated, progressive students

EDITORIAL BOARD Christine Byrd
 Editor in Chief

Michael Litschi
 Managing Editor

Jonah Lalas
 Viewpoint Editor

Barbara Ortutay
 News Editor

Amy Golod
 Staff Representative

Timothy Kudo
 Staff Representative

Brian O’Camb
 Staff Representative

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To potential UCLA students: In deciding whether or not to attend
UCLA, there are several factors you must take into consideration
that may have not been communicated to you appropriately or in
detail by the university and student outreach groups. Most people
would agree that UCLA is one of the top public research
universities in the nation. There’s no question that students
who come to UCLA have the ability to fine tune and develop their
academic skills in a competitive environment. UCLA provides
students with the opportunity to excel. But while the academic side
of education at UCLA may have a prestigious reputation, the social
climate is a different story ““ a story that, for the sake of
fairness to incoming students, needs to be portrayed accurately.
For one thing, hate crimes at UCLA have become more noticeable in
recent years. Incidents have varied from crimes against women and
racial minorities to acts of hate against members of the lesbian,
gay, bisexual and transgender community. For example, last year on
campus, an African American woman was physically attacked while
racial slurs were shouted at her by a white male. Also last year,
the offices of student advocacy groups belonging to various
underrepresented minority and the Jewish, Muslim and LGBT
communities were vandalized. Though UCLA responded to the problem
by establishing a hate crimes policy which imposes stiffer
punishments for hate-motivated crime on campus, such incidents
continue. Recently, posters about the inequality women face in the
entertainment industry were vandalized with sexist messages.
Students who choose to come to UCLA will also have the chance to
witness the gradual decrease of diversity on our campus. The number
of underrepresented minority students at UCLA has fallen steeply
since the implementation of SP-1, the 1998 measure that eliminated
the use of race as a factor in admissions. For example, African
Americans made up 5 percent of the entering class in 1997, the last
year affirmative action was used, but they constituted only 2.8
percent of this year’s admittees. Next year’s entering
class will be the first to experience a campus where the freshmen,
sophomores, juniors and most seniors were admitted without the
benefit of affirmative action. Interacting with a diverse student
body is an integral part of a quality education, but UCLA is
definitely not at the level it should be. Los Angeles is one of the
most diverse cities in the nation, yet its own university continues
to be unreflective of the population. But there’s more. If
you come to UCLA, you’ll encounter a skyrocketing cost of
both living and parking on campus and in the surrounding community.
Even academically, UCLA is considering such questionable measures
as reducing the number of units students can take before
graduating, making it difficult for students to diversify their
curriculum and still graduate on time. You may ask yourself: With
all the problems UCLA is facing, should I still attend? The answer
is a resounding “yes.” With all of UCLA’s ills
comes the opportunity for students to make a difference: UCLA needs
your help. Having members of underrepresented minority communities
on campus means that UCLA will have students that care about these
issues and are willing to fight for changes. Members of these
underrepresented communities will also help resolve UCLA’s
embarrassing lack of diversity and perhaps raise awareness of
issues facing these communities that may work to curb hate crimes.
And if you’re not an underrepresented minority, the
university needs you, too. All of our opinions and ideas are
influenced by our individual experiences, and thus we each have
something unique to contribute to the campus. We must use our prior
knowledge to engage, share and learn from one another. Real change
requires the support of everyone. Having students who come into
UCLA focused on improving the overall quality of our university
will make our educational experience richer. We hope these students
will carry these critical problem-solving attitudes with them and
apply them to our society in hopes of making it a better place as
well. But in order for this to happen, we need you here. Please
come to this great university, and take the opportunity to leave it
a better place than you found it.

Sincerely,
Daily Bruin Editorial Board