Statement of Support for proposals by UCSD faculty of African descent and the UCSD Black Student Union

Our faculty coalition supports the recent proposals by UCSD faculty of African descent and the UCSD Black Student Union. We are their allies in calling for UCSD to address racial inequities as the university is restructured during the budget crisis.

We urge a systematic analysis that understands the recent eruptions at UCSD not as isolated or exceptional; these expressions are commensurate with a university system that has not created the conditions for racial equity. Fifteen years after the University of California banned affirmative action, it is not only the repeated instances of campus racism, but the university administration's inability to act effectively to address them, which testifies to the need for the university to renew its commitments to public access and diversity education. As we work to preserve higher education as a public good, we must also secure resources to support curriculum, research, and scholarship on history of race and the critical study of racism, as well as greater outreach and changes to admissions, resource allocation, and college requirements – if the university is to create an academic culture that prepares a diverse public to participate in and contribute to a multiracial society.