Affirmative Diversity Talking Points

• We are charging UCSC with active institutional racism and sexism. What this means is that they are sustaining systematic yet hidden policies and practices that have the effect of disadvantaging students, faculty and workers of color.

• Diversity is not just about numbers. To us, diversity is not empty rhetoric. Affirmative diversity means actively working against the status quo of institutional racism and sexism at UCSC. The first step toward that is that UCSC acknowledges that it is not the progressive place it thinks it is.

• Institutional racism and sexism is sustained by:
o The office of UC President Dynes
o The office of Chancellor Denton
o The office of Executive Vice Chancellor Kliger
o The office of Interim Dean of Humanities Lease
o Faculty in various departments who are against a vision of affirmative diversity

• Institutional racism and sexism is:
o Seemingly passive and apolitical administrative actions and policies whose effects are to create a hostile environment, often subtly racist and sexist, for faculty, students and workers of color and actively contribute to the inability to retain them at UCSC. For example, multiple faculty of color were (or may be) forced to resign due to hostile administrators and faculty. These faculty members have greatly contributed to teaching and research on race, ethnicity and gender that is crucial to the education of all UCSC students. They were also crucial to helping students from racialized minorities feel that their lives, experiences and histories matter.

o Seemingly passive and apolitical university funding allocations and administrative delays whose effects have been to disable vital student organizations and services that create an affirmative environment for students of color and diversity at UCSC.

1) The center for Student Organization Advising and Resources (SOAR) has also faced consistent, unnecessary cuts, and a recent suspicious robbing of their bank account by Student Affairs administrators.

2) Year-long administrative delays in granting funding to Student Initiated Outreach programs left crucial organizations in debt.

o Student initiated outreach and retention programs and resource centers are the primary reason a semblance of diversity exists at UCSC and why students of color stay at UCSC. The University has not publicly recognized their efforts and has continued to reduce funding for these student organizations and resource centers. These include: Rainbow Theater, Engaging Education, MEChA, Filipino Student Association, TWANAS, ABSA, APISA, AATAT, SANAI, the Ethnic Resource Centers, ESOC.

o Making a verbal commitment to “Diversity through Excellence” but not closing the wage disparity gap for custodians who are mostly people of color. Custodians at UCSC are paid between 13-30% less than their counterparts at Cabrillo and CSUMB.

We want affirmative diversity!
• Affirmative diversity means giving custodians and staff living wages and creating an environment where they want to stay.
• Affirmative diversity means funding, supporting and recognizing student organizations that provide crucial support for retaining and outreaching US based underrepresented racial and gender groups.
• Affirmative diversity means hiring and retaining faculty of color and faculty from all racial and gender backgrounds who teach and research underrepresented groups, race and ethnicity. Understanding the operations of race and ethnicity is crucial to the education of all UCSC students.
• Affirmative diversity means being committed to achieving equal results not merely equal treatment.
• Affirmative diversity means taking proactive steps to ensure that all spaces on campus are safe environments free of the consistent racism, sexism and homophobia that pervade all university settings.