The administration and faculty at the University of California San Diego began the year as they always do, looking inwards. This year, plans were begun to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the campus. Those plans have been diminished if not scuttled by this very public airing of what is its unfinished business.
The spontaneous protests led by African-American students this week demonstrates the presence of racial and class tensions present at all levels on the La Jolla campus that have been left unaddressed ever since the university’s founding.
The protests and subsequent demands were in response to two racially-charged incidents propagated by fellow students: one on campus and one off campus. A UCSD-authorized fraternity held what they were calling “Compton Cookout” in order to grotesquely stereotype African-Americans, especially women. This was followed by an equally distasteful program on student-run television.
Noose found hanging in UCSD library
A noose was then discovered hanging in the library, and soon afterward a statue in front of the library was found with a Ku Klux Klan hood affixed to it.
The sponsors and attendees at the recent “Compton Cookout” stirred a pot much deeper than the massive reservoir of ignorance and insensitivity they displayed by hosting such a despicable event. Their boorish behavior highlights the longstanding criticism leveled at college fraternity organizations as closed, myopic societies with a long history of exclusion and anti-social behavior.
The off-campus party sponsored by a fraternity at UCSD has been roundly and rightly criticized as hate speech that creates an unhealthy environment on a campus with the worst record for diversity in the entire UC system.
Given that record, it was not surprising that the media reported that Chancellor Marye Anne Fox replied to the non-negotiable student demands with the repeated verbal statement, “Done! Done! Done!” There was no evaluation of their complaints, no community discussion, no decision of what to do with the chief instigators of the “Compton Cookout,” and no faculty or staff evaluation of the feasibility of complying with such a wide-ranging set of demands.
No, the strategy was short-termed – get the embarrassing matter off the table as quickly as possible. Regrettably,
Read more: http://www.sdnn.com/sandiego/2010-03-03/local-county-news/opinion-when-%E2%80%9Cdone%E2%80%9D-is-not-enough#ixzz0hDLB4jIm
