In fact, students looking for a perfect example of how to take a legitimate and worthy cause and completely skew it into ineffectual, self-pitying rhetoric need look no further than the concilio’s report, titled “”A Legacy of Institutional Neglect,”” on the “”hostility”” of UCSD toward Latino students.
While the concerns of Latino students, not to mention students of all racial classifications, are of the utmost importance in governing the university and providing a safe atmosphere, the concilio has taken valid concerns and turned them into absurdly forced claims, supported by spun facts and exaggerated rhetoric.
The concilio issued the report card to the university, claiming that UCSD is “”hostile”” to not only the Latinos of the university but the entire Latino community of San Diego. The report stated that “”the current conditions for Chicano/Latinos at UCSD are indeed dire”” and that the wealth of information and resources were “”virtually inaccessible to the Chicano/Latino community of San Diego County.”” The report then asked for increased enrollment of Latinos at the university and increased hiring of Latino staff members in order to accommodate the expected number of Latino and Chicano students.
The report criticized the university for its failure to act decisively on Latino diversity. While it is doubtlessly true that most of the university’s rhetoric was symbolic, the concilio’s report misconstrues or ignores many facets that must be addressed before taking more drastic measures. In addition, the report exemplifies the narrow-minded viewpoint of special interest groups that aren’t really working toward diversity, but rather toward achieving their own agendas.
For example, one reason listed for inhospitality at UCSD was a stagnation of Latino/Chicano admissions rather than an increase. As of this year, the enrollment of Latinos is hovering between 8 and 10 percent. The argument the report uses is that this falls absurdly short of the 30 percent of the San Diego community that Latinos constitute.
This would be a well-placed fact except that Caucasian students only make up 37 percent of the UCSD population when they cover nearly 66.5 percent of San Diego County. Even if you widen the area to California, whites are still underrepresented by up to 10 percent. If we are going to enroll by such stringent racial quotas, then more white students had best be enrolled as well. Perhaps we can pick and choose which races should suffer in order to increase white student representation. That would go over well with the concilio, I’m sure.
In other words, to meet the concilio’s requirements, other minority groups will have to suffer. Or we can continue to discriminate against white students, who are also “”underrepresented”” in the university. While the concilio merely wants to raise Latino student enrollment, which is theoretically noble, to try to specifically raise one race’s enrollment numbers is borderline-racist by the basic definition of the word.
The report also demands that UCSD hire more faculty and staff in order to accommodate the needs of Latino students. If the people that wrote this report are so concerned with the dilapidation of their ethnic studies and culture-specific departments, they had better bite the bullet and stand in line. UCSD is so preoccupied with its scientific research that many of the non-science departments are left out to dry. This is not institutionalized neglect but rather a pursuit of science and a deliberate unconcern with most other areas of study.
The report further suggests that it is UCSD’s fault when students that are accepted choose not to attend. First, the report mentions that one in four Latinos declines acceptance. Oddly enough, that is the same ratio as students of all colors that decline acceptance. This argument is baseless because it is true across all skin colors.
Second, the concilio reasons that this 75-percent rejection is based on the idea that Latino students do not feel welcome at UCSD. This is an intriguing facet that is often overlooked. Why should Latino/Chicano students feel unwelcome? Is it because they have no resources or staff to encourage their ethnicity?
Perhaps, but no one considers white students of rich cultural heritages such as Irish, French, Scandinavian or German. These students have no club, resource center, ethnic appreciation or special favors.
The report even has the audacity to suggest that some Latino students don’t attend UCSD because of the rumors of a racist newspaper ‹ that is, The Koala. This sort of absurd hypersensitivity should be given no credibility. If Latinos/Chicanos refuse to attend UCSD because of a perceived notion that the Koala is racist, then no ethnicity should attend UCSD, where the Koala runs free to insult all races.
Furthermore, along that line of thinking, white students should not attend this school because the New Indicator has repeatedly said that all whites are racist, and Voz Fronteriza repeatedly uses racial slurs to attack anyone that isn’t Latino.
The most laughable statement, however, did not come from the report itself, but rather from the university. While avoiding any comments on the report and its findings, the university representative said that the university “”appreciates [the concilio’s] commitment to diversity.””
Diversity? The concilio is centered on only one race’s goals: their own. How is this diversity? Can anyone imagine an Asian student writing a report like this, claiming that, for diversity’s sake, all demands regarding only Asian students must be met? The mere idea elicits hearty chuckles. “”Laughable”” should be the term used for the concilio’s report.
No doubt the rebuttal is a watered-down message about how the concilio relates to every underrepresented minority on campus. However, that means nothing considering certain groups are often neglected from such rhetoric, such as the campus’ Jewish students.
There should be no question that the university should be working toward a campus where all students feel safe. However, this report card should not sway the university at all. It is no different from every other advocacy group’s “”damning reports,”” wrought from every belief system, cultural group and political ideology that wants things better for them specifically.
No doubt I will be called a racist as well. But when misconstrued fact and gross exaggeration are protected under the shield of diversity, it’s hard not to speak out, regardless of the consequences. And I assure you, I condemn all absurdities committed in the name of equality, regardless of race.