Step for School Unity and Rights

Los Angeles public schools, the most diverse in the nation, educate children of every race, ethnicity, religion and sexual orientation. This mix, at times combustible, requires sensitivity in every classroom and on every campus. For years, the response has been to establish separate commissions--first Mexican American, then African American, Asian American, Native American, a gay and lesbian panel and on and on. The result was too often balkanization. So the Los Angeles Board of Education did the right thing Monday in creating a single human relations commission to replace the special commissions.

The new panel, proposed by board member Barbara Boudreaux, ought to save some of the $700,000 spent annually to staff the various groups, and it should put the interests of all students over parochial divvying of the spoils. The board now needs to ask why any advisory committee should cost that kind of money.

The first LAUSD commission resulted from the Chicano student protests three decades ago at a time when the school district was unresponsive to minority students and when Latino educators rarely were allowed to rise to high levels. Since then, the leadership and demographics have changed dramatically, and so have the needs.

The school board, once dominated by whites, has been thoroughly integrated for years. Supt. Ruben Zacarias is the second Mexican American educator to head the district. Latino children, and not just from Mexico, are in the majority in a district where 80 languages and dialects are spoken.

It is true that the school board acted in response to Proposition 209, the state ban on racial, ethnic and gender preferences, in creating the single commission. But if the job is carried out with determination to help all students and not protect turf, the new commission should reduce tensions and strengthen respect for diversity.