Diverse Group Takes on Issue of Diversity at UC Irvine

UC Irvine students, staff members, instructors and others are tackling what could be touchy territory: the world of “diversity.”

As debate over affirmative action policies in the University of California system heats up, members of the UCI community met Tuesday to talk about creating an environment that fosters respect for people’s differences.

Students and faculty members discussed the campus’s eight-monthlong plan to create a diversity council, which could take on a host of tasks, from reviewing campus curriculum and admissions to advocating more spending on diversity initiatives.

“I don’t want us to become an intellectual monoculture,” Chancellor Laurel L. Wilkening told about 100 people gathered at UCI’s Student Center. “A worthy goal is to live in a place where prejudice doesn’t exist.”

In September, Wilkening issued her manifesto on UCI’s place in the 21st Century and noted the campus should make diversity a selling point and educational asset. Being educated at a university with a broad variety of students and employees is a “competitive advantage,” Wilkening said Tuesday, and “none of this will be affected by (changes in) affirmative action.”

Of UCI’s more than 16,000 students, about 33% are Anglo, 12% are Latino, 2% are Black and 44% are of Asian descent. It has the heaviest proportion of Asian American students of any UC campus, according to UC statistics.

Some observers have complained that UC students of certain ethnic groups have lower entrance exam scores than other students who are denied admission--an issue that has gained outspoken opposition as competition mounts for increasingly precious slots at UC campuses. UC Regent Ward Connerly recently spoke out against affirmative action in the university and said he will try to propose a way to end race-based preferences in hiring and admissions.

“I think we’re in for some days ahead that test our community,” UCI Executive Vice Chancellor Sidney Golub said. Talk of ending affirmative action “will challenge us to maintain our civility. I would hope the diversity council will be a place where we can discuss how change will affect our community.”

The university defines diversity as a process that helps students, faculty and staff members of various sexual orientations, religions, races and other characteristics to reach their “top potential.” Affirmative action means efforts to hire and recruit to end underrepresentation of minorities, women and others.

Some, however, worry that diversity efforts will make affirmative action’s elimination more palatable to university leaders. Others worry that suggestions may go unheeded.

UCI officials said they intend to keep the council from running into debate by including all segments of the university and allowing the campus community to decide who is on the council.

The council likely will try to organize the campus’s hundred-odd separate diversity programs, such as educational projects put on at heavily Latino elementary schools.

At Tuesday’s meeting, everyone agreed that the university should strive for diversity, but some wondered exactly what diversity is .

“Diversity is important for students because UCI’s really changing, in who’s here, who wants to be here and who can be here,” said Aaron Liefer, a junior. “But diversity is nebulous and one of the council’s hardest problems will be wading through its definition.”