Separate but equal?

By Alisa Farenzena
From the May 2004 Print Edition

Imagine a campus organization whose every member was the same ethnicity and openly advocated putting his race above all others. Sound far-fetched? The description fits the bill for the Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán (MEChA), whose slogan “For the race, everything; for those outside the race, nothing” is indisputably racist.

The Berkeley MEChA Constitution states one of the organization’s objectives is “to develop, maintain, and defend programs that work on recruiting and retaining Raza to the University,” yet there would be public outcry if the goal of any organization were to assist only Caucasian students. Worse is that our student fees support this racism—the ASUC granted MEChA $2,500 in funding for the 2003-2004 school year.

MEChA is not the only student-funded organization on campus that promotes preferential treatment. The Raza, Black, and Native American Recruitment and Retention Centers have the same goals. These three programs received substantial amounts of funding this year as well: $33,120, $30,360 and $9,000, respectively.

Minority recruitment and retention fails to produce an ideal society in which everyone has friends of every color. In reality, many minorities isolate themselves within their racial groups, and the University facilitates this process. UC Berkeley has separate housing for Latino and African-American students who choose to live among students of their own races. These establishments only widen cultural rifts among students and defeat the much-lauded goal of diversity.

Many Berkeley liberals claim that diversity allows students to forge friendships with students of other ethnicities and learn to appreciate each other’s cultures, but minorities who decide to segregate themselves from the rest of the student population never will. “The African American Theme House,” according to Resource, “is an Afrocentric setting” where students enjoy events including Black History Month programs and Kwanzaa celebrations. Students living there will certainly learn to appreciate their own culture, but will not learn anything about other cultures.

The University also assists minorities by segregating their study areas. The Raza Study Hall is a self-described “space for Chicano/Latino students to get together to study.” There is no reason for a Raza Study Hall to exist—the Student Learning Center is already available to students of all races.

Each year, minority seniors across the country also hold separate graduation ceremonies for their own races. This May, UC Berkeley will again host a Black Graduation and a Chicano/Latino Graduation. That such practices exist is truly disheartening. As a University and as a society, we should be moving toward minimizing racial differences, not magnifying them.

If the goal of such recruitment and retention programs is truly multiculturalism, why not spend money reaching out to Italians, Swedes and Armenians? The fact that Cal goes to extraordinary lengths to recruit students of certain ethnicities indicates that the seemingly noble goal of multiculturalism is simply being used to give backdoor affirmative action programs the appearance of legitimacy, even virtue.

These programs are impediments to diversity, not means of achieving it. They actually harm race relations on campus; students are not inclined to associate with members of other ethnicities if they have questions in their minds as to why they were admitted in the first place. It is no wonder that they turn to divisive student groups and programs.

Yet perhaps this unfortunate status quo is what the organizers of backdoor affirmative action programs want. It is in their best interest to keep race relations poor so they can claim that minority groups are being oppressed. If society ever realized that we have achieved racial equality, these programs would be out of business.

Affirmative action’s focus is misguided because, by virtue of all people having been created equal, race is irrelevant. True diversity involves differences in people’s ideas. The products of race-based recruitment programs might come in every color of the rainbow, but it is no secret that the bent of these programs is decidedly liberal. If students all bring the same canned leftist messages to campus discussions, what has been accomplished but homogeneity?

Although Proposition 209 ended de jure affirmative action in California, racial preferences are still alive and well. The Racial Privacy Initiative, written by UC Regent Ward Connerly, would have cut out much of this reverse discrimination by putting an end to the collection of race-based data in public education, employment, and contracting. Proposition 54 did not pass in October, but voters will have another chance to approve the RPI when a clearer revision appears on the ballot.

In the meantime, the University should realize the divisive nature of these programs and work to dismantle them. Once we put racial classifications behind us, universities can see applicants for their qualifications and who they are as individuals. Students will not be left wondering why they were admitted, since everyone will be here due to his own merit. Then, and only then, will students have the opportunity to learn about the cultures and customs of others and develop genuine appreciation for multiculturalism.

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