By Kim Nguyen
Most UC students and faculty scatter during the summer, but more than 50 of them gathered under the punishing August sun Thursday to protest the University of California Regents' decision to end affirmative action in admissions and hiring.
Protesters circled Regent Tirso Del Junco's Sunset Boulevard medical office in response to a call for action from a coalition of individuals and groups associated with UCLA.
Students from UCLA, UC Irvine and Los Angeles City College joined alumni, staff and administrators in chanting, brandishing signs and waving their fists. Drivers honked as they whizzed by, onlookers applauded and a gaggle of journalists recorded the event.
The march was the first Southern California response to the Regents' decision, an organizer said.
"Our immediate goal is to let the Regents know how much they have disrupted education ... particularly at UCLA," said Connie Razza, a second-year graduate student in the English department and organizer for the coalition, No Action Without Affirmative Action.
"We want to demonstrate to Regent Tirso Del Junco the kind of disruption that he is bringing to our lives, and disrupt his life professionally as well," Razza said.
The action succeeded in disrupting the vascular surgeon's medical practice. Del Junco neither appeared at his office nor scheduled patients that day.
Why students targeted him bewildered Del Junco, he said. Neither he nor any individual regent represents the entire board.
Taking to the streets was an inappropriate way of dealing with a university problem that he saw as purely internal, he said.
But Del Junco, a close friend of Gov. Pete Wilson, symbolizes a board more concerned with politics than with education, coalition organizers said.
A staunch opponent of Del Junco and fierce defender of affirmative action, UCLA Chancellor Charles Young joined him in condemning the protest, however.
"To go to a person's office, a place where medicine is practiced, is not an appropriate way to solve things," Young said.
This is the second time that UCLA agitants have targeted Del Junco's office. The UCLA Alliance for Equal Learning Opportunities picketed the site in January. The group formed in response to Regent Ward Connerly's proposal to end affirmative action,which led to last month's vote.
The July decision makes the University of California the first college system in the country to formally scale back its affirmative action program.
"The UC system has set the entire agenda for education across the country for fair and non-discriminatory education," said Gregory Jackson, a protester and graduate student in English. "To have this decision is to turn back things more than 25 years,"
The coalition leadership drew its members mostly from within the UCLA English department to plan an immediate response to the Regents' vote, said protest organizer Joanna Brooks.
UCLA's Graduate Students Association, the undergraduate students' association, the African Student Union and the Asian Pacific Coalition officially announced their full support of the demonstration.
"We want to strike while the iron is still hot," Brooks said. "We want people to know that as students, we care about what is happening to our lives and education."
This sentiment of urgency was shared by John Shapley, president of the Graduate Students Association. He viewed the protest as a way to sustain the momentum that students had created during the vote.
Many protesters shared the notion that the July 20 decision to end affirmative action was a result of a shifting political climate and pressure from Gov. Wilson.
Marchers voiced dissatisfaction with the politicization of educational policy and wielded signs reading "Pete Wilson & Del Junco are partners in crime," and "Pete Wilson makes me sick."
Ramiro Palamo drove from UC Irvine to fight for diversity, which he believes is the most important aspect of the UC system.
"Affirmative action was fought for 30 years ago, and since then, the UC system has thrived on diversity," Palamo said. "To say that there is no longer a need for minority programs is totally hypocritical."
Such diversity has improved the lot for women, said members of The Feminist Majority Foundation,whose members marched in solidarity.
"Affirmative action is not just a race card," said Eleanor Mason, a representative from the foundation. "Anyone who has been oppressed should be out here."
Students should fight such oppression in the ballot box, said Heather Boerner, who had traveled from UC Santa Cruz to join in the action.
"Last year only 7 percent of students voted," she said while she lathered her face with sun screen to protect it from the hot sun.
The very lack of accountability to the voters was a prime cause of frustration to protest organizers. The governor appoints the majority of regents, who therefore remain unaccountable to students, faculty and administrators of the nine UC campuses.
"Without a voting structure, and without an accountability to a constituency, the regents are able to spend billions every year without listening to the people who give their lives to these places," said Brooks.
The prime goal was to defeat the California Civil Rights Initiative (CCRI) if it comes to the the ballot in the November 1996 election, said Alyssa Kang, a member of the Asian Pacific Coalition and the Affirmative Action Coalition, an undergraduate student group.
The CCRI would outlaw race, gender, ethnicity or national origin as a reason for discriminating against or giving preferential treatment to any person or group in public employment, college admission or government contracting policies, said Joe Gelman, director of the measure's campaign. Gov. Wilson fully supports the measure.
Although almost 700,000 voters signatures are required to qualify the initiative as a constitutional amendment, election officials predict that this will be easily accomplished.
The measure already has been submitted to the attorney general for legal review, and supporters are gearing up to collect signatures.
With reports from Tatiana Botton
Students picket regent's office