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Monday, April 1, 1996

Board stands firm on affirmative action as protesters challenge By Michael Howerton

Daily Bruin Staff

SAN FRANCISCO -- The moment the University of California Board of Regents moved to strike another blow against saving affirmative action in the university, dozens of student protesters struck back, storming the March meeting and fighting police to overtake the table as regents scattered into a back room.

Two proposals were scheduled to come before the board, urging members to rethink the resolution they passed last July to eliminate affirmative action policies in admission procedures.

One, proposed by Regent Judith Levin, would allow more time for input from various university groups by placing a one-year waiting period on implementing the new guidelines. The proposal was removed from the agenda before the meeting.

The other, submitted by student Regent Ed Gomez, sought to overturn the regents' repeal of affirmative action. That motion was postponed indefinitely, a move which effectively killed it.

The board's reaffirmation of their commitment to eliminate any system granting admission and hiring preferences based on race or gender angered student demonstrators, who have criticized the board continually for neglecting their input.

Upon hearing the 10-to-3 vote to postpone Gomez' proposal indefinitely, a cry rose from the student-packed audience and a group of nine UC Berkeley students, part of a group called "Diversity in Action," rushed down the steps yelling and putting a stop to the meeting.

The surprise and force of the protesters' onslaught sent a police officer who was standing guard tumbling backward down the steps and students tripping over her as they rushed forward toward the regents' table.

The commotion quickly brought more than 30 university police officers onto the floor to subdue and arrest the agitators. The demonstrators, however, refused to go easily and while some sat on the ground holding on to the chairs and each other, chanting and clapping, others scuffled with officers.

Ultimately, the students who had rushed the table were removed, some kicking and screaming, leaving about two dozen more students in the audience, clapping and chanting. The nine Berkeley students were arrested on charges of disturbing the peace and resisting arrest. They were all cited and released.

Most of the regents left the meeting hall during the commotion, but Regent Ward Connerly was one of the few who stayed. Connerly, who originally proposed the ban on affirmative action, was the main target of the protesters' attack. Members of the audience shouted insults and accusations at the regent as he sat facing them.

After about five minutes of chanting, "No justice, No peace," the students became quiet and the face-off began. The students stood silently and stared at Connerly. A line of 30 UC police officers stood staring at the students in the audience while forming a barricade between the audience and the regents' table. Connerly sat almost alone at the table behind the barricade, arms folded and stared back at the students.

"Do you feel safe behind all those police officers?" one of the students shouted at Connerly after a while. "Where is your spine?"

The regent, who had earlier heard threats against him during the public comment session such as, "We know where you live," and, "You better watch your back," answered back at this latest round of attacks.

"I have sufficient spine to sit here and listen to you," Connerly told the protesters, "which is more than I can say for you."

After a few more minutes of silence and indecision, most of the protesters in the audience left and the rest of the regents came back in, resuming the meeting where it left off as if no disruption had occurred.

During the afternoon recess, however, Connerly sharply criticized the protesters' tactics and said he will pursue legal retaliation for the attacks on his life.

"I say to the students, sit back and think with your head, this is not the '60s," said Connerly, who also had protesters demonstrating in front of his Sacramento office a few weeks before the meeting.

"Their behavior is childish," he said. "It makes it difficult for us to understand where they're coming from. What they are saying is because certain groups are underrepresented, we should break the rules. They act as if, if you are born a certain skin color, you are locked out. What about poor whites or Asians? Equality is not based on color."

Connerly, who is African American, gave the example of his own daughter. Although she is a member of a ethnic minority, she has not had an upbringing that he would term "disadvantaged." There are others who might not be of a minority racial group, but in greater need of special consideration who are denied it under affirmative action, he said.

The threats that he better watch his back and that the protesters would come to his house as they have come to his office, left Connerly fearful of his safety but undaunted in his resolve.

"I regard them as threats against me physically and it's against the law to threaten public officials' lives," he said, adding that he would look at the news tapes to determine the identity of those who made threats at the meeting and he would consider prosecuting them.

"I hope people in the state see how insane this is becoming," Connerly said. "This is not students exercising just their right to speak; this is unconscionable."

Ever since the decision to end consideration of race and gender in admissions and hiring at the university nearly eight months ago, a majority of the speakers during the public comment sessions at the board meetings have insulted and criticized Connerly for his unwavering stance against affirmative action. Despite this, Connerly said he would never consider banning the students from speaking or protesting at the meetings.

"I have great faith that people will realize that race is not a proxy for disadvantage," Connerly said. "It is morally indefensible. I am right, morally and legally."

In contrast, student groups justified the outburst at the meeting as a symbolic effort to take over the conference table and show the regents that they will have to listen to student concerns, rather than ignoring the benefactors of the institution they preside over.

"The regents are, at this point, acting like children, dancing around holding their ears," student spokesperson Blinker Wood said.

"I support what the students did," said Wood, who is University of California Student Association (UCSA) campus office director and a student at UC Santa Barbara. "The students have no part in shared governance and only one tokenizing vote (on the Board of Regents)."

The UC studen association had spent weeks lobbying certain regents who were undecided about the issue, and since two of the most conservative members of the board ended their tenures last month, they felt there was a strong possibility that the vote to end affirmative action could have been overturned at the meeting, Wood said.

But the boards refusal to even vote on Gomez's proposal ­ instead opting to postpone it indefinitely ­ was very disappointing, said Wood, who saw the board's actions as just another example of their disregard for students, faculty and staff.

Some on the board supported postponing the vote on whether to reinstate affirmative action in light of the California Civil Rights Initiative (CCRI) which will be on the state ballot in November and, if passed, will eliminate all affirmative action policies in state institutions, which would include the University of California.

If the bill passes, then the board would be forced to implement its provisions. If the bill fails, the board would probably be under heavy pressure to repeal their ban on affirmative action. With the state-wide vote looming, many thought it would be best to postpone Gomez's proposal and wait to see how the state vote turns out.

However, Wood said there were plenty of reasons why the students association did not want to wait for the Nov. vote.

"SP-2 (eliminating affirmative action in hiring at the university) is in effect now and people don't realize that," he said. "And (the implementation of the new admissions policies) for graduate schools are still set for fall of 1997."

That means that even if CCRI fails and the board reinstates affirmative action, the admissions for the graduate students entering in 1997 would have already been selected based on procedures that did not consider race and gender as factors.

"We are not willing to sacrifice one class," Wood said. "If we could have rescinded (the ban) today, we could have prevented that."

Faculty at the nine UC campuses have criticized the regents for voting to end affirmative action without deferring to the long held tradition of shared governance, in which the faculty members have been traditional consultation partners with the regents, especially on matters of admissions policies.

Regent Judith Levin's proposal ­ removed from the agenda before the meeting ­ was aimed not so much at the issue of affirmative action, but rather at shared governance, Levin said a few days before the meeting. She sought a one year moratorium on the decision in order to heal the damage between the regents and the faculty.

"I realized the votes were not there," Levin said, explaining why she withdrew her measure. "I was trying to give them a tickle, to get at their conscience, but it was only viewed as continuing the dissension (on the board)."

Levin said she hopes someone can craft a statement in the future that reaffirms the principle of affirmative government, but is not sure what form that statement should take. She indicated that her proposal was not considered by the other regents to be the appropriate means for that reaffirmation.Comments to webmaster@db.asucla.ucla.edu