Francisco J. Garcia Jr. is a fourth-year Latin American studies
student with a minor in public policy. He is an organizing member
of Conciencia Libre and the Student Labor Action Committee. Â
Illustration by ZACH LOPEZ/Daily Bruin
By Francisco Garcia Jr.
In reviewing Standing Policies 1 and 2 of the UC Regents, I came
across sections 9 and 5 of SP-1 and SP-2, respectively, which both
state: “Believing California’s diversity to be an
asset, we adopt this statement: Because individual members of all
of California’s diverse races have the intelligence and
capacity to succeed at the University of California, this policy
will achieve a UC population that reflects this state’s
diversity through the preparation and empowerment of all students
in this state to succeed rather than through a system of artificial
preferences."
Now the first half of that statement sounds great, doesn’t
it? But it is largely lip-service. No one is denying that
California’s diverse races (i.e. people of color) have the
“intelligence and capacity to succeed” at a university.
Given this statement of “truth,” the sections then
state that SP-1 and 2 will ensure that the state’s diversity
will be adequately reflected rather than through a system of
“artificial preferences.”
With this statement, it becomes apparent that these policies are
functioning in a fantasy land where they assume that just because
students of all races and ethnicities have the capacity to succeed
at the UC, that they also have the equal access to the UC
system.
When you look at the close correlation of race/ethnicity and
socioeconomic status, you know that this is in fact a farce.
Minority applicants, primarily African American, American Indian,
Chicano-Latino and Pilipino students, continuously come from
economically disadvantaged communities where school resources are
lacking.
Many minority students from areas such as Inglewood, Watts,
Pico-Union, East Los Angeles and parts of the San Fernando and San
Gabriel Valleys are more than eager to attend UCLA or other UCs.
But since the passage of SP-1, how many of them are going to get in
unless they have a 4.2 GPA, took eight or more A.P. classes and got
a 1,400 or higher on the SAT?
On a personal note I was fortunate to have applied in the fall
of 1996, right before SP-1 was to be enforced. Had I applied a year
later, I might not have been accepted, judging that my GPA was not
a 4.0 and my SAT scores were nowhere near 1,400.
But four years later, I will be graduating with honors and
hopefully continuing onto graduate school. Now were my academic
qualifications a complete indicator of my potential success at
UCLA? Obviously not.
SP-2 works the same way as SP-1, only it affects the hiring and
contracting of employees for the university. This of course
includes faculty. Think about this: whether you’ve been here
one quarter or five years, how many minority professors have you
had here at UCLA? Unless your major is in an ethnic studies area
(Chicano studies, Asian Am, Afro Am, Women studies, etc.), chances
are not too many. Again, with the passage of SP-2, race, ethnicity
and sex are no longer worthy factors in hiring faculty and
staff.
Now let’s look at this issue in light of the most
disadvantaged individuals on campus, service workers. How many of
us acknowledge the workers that clean the dorms, serve and make the
food in every single campus eatery and dining hall, and clean the
entire campus every night while we go home to our dorms and
apartments to study?
How many of us take the time to say “hello” or
“thank you” to the dozens of workers that cross our
paths day after day on this campus? I would venture to say that not
too many of us do. The majority of the service workers on campus
who work in every nook and cranny of this institution are
overwhelmingly people of color, mainly Latinos and African
Americans. Minorities are far more represented in this group of
UCLA employees, as compared to minority students and faculty.
Consequently, I dare to say that all of these service workers
are every bit as affected by the implementation of anti-affirmative
action policies, namely SP-1 and SP-2, as all of us students. If
you look at it a certain way, with the implementation of SP-1 and
SP-2, there has been a drastic drop in the number of
underrepresented minorities as students and faculty; meanwhile, the
number of underrepresented minorities are significantly represented
as service workers on campus.
Moreover, while these approximately 2,000 workers are unionized
as part of AFSCME (American Federation of State, County and
Municipal Employees), they still face many injustices and abuses in
the workplace (i.e. UCLA). For example, workers in various
departments from food services in the Faculty Center, hospital and
dining halls face harassment and verbal abuse; staff in the Unit
Support Associates department of the hospital, who clean and deal
with medical waste in the patient areas of the hospital, are
understaffed, overworked and still face a potential downsizing of
30 percent. It is no surprise that the majority of the USA staff
are people of color.
Workers are organizing against these abuses, and as we need them
to support our efforts to defend minority access to higher
education, they need us to stand strong with them in their struggle
for better working conditions, decent wages and benefits.
Can you see the connection? UCLA is slowly at the threat of
becoming an institution that serves an entirely privileged,
racially/ethnically and socioeconomically homogenous student and
faculty population, while the majority of people who provide the
hard labor to keep the university clean and fed are people of
color. In essence it is a more subtle, modern-day oppression that
allows for some entrance of underrepresented minorities into the
university but only if you have the economic and inflated academic
qualifications.
As conscious students, faculty, and staff from all backgrounds,
we need to ensure that this system of injustice doesn’t
perpetuate itself to the point that we have a truly elite
institution in California, where segregation occurs in various
forms of overrepresented minority service workers against
underrepresented minority students and faculty.
Next time you get a chance, talk to service workers, thank them
for the services that they provide and join them in their struggle.
It may be their children who are being prevented from attending the
UC system because of SP-1.
Remember the refrain, “An Injury to one is an Injury to
All.” Join the Affirmative Action Coalition in their efforts
to repeal SP-1 and 2, and make bridges into the labor movement.
They’re both happening as we speak at UCLA and at campuses
all over the country. They are part of the same movement, a
movement against social and economic injustice, racism and
classism.