Strength Through Diversity : UC Irvine needs to come together on the Asian studies issue

If universities in California are to shed more light than heat on issues of cultural diversity, they first must acknowledge past failings and then move toward remedies that produce scholarly, interdisciplinary programs in the histories and cultures of different ethnic groups.

It seems simple enough, but how easy it is to get derailed from the mission by political correctness, stubborn adherence to a Eurocentric world view or by mere bureaucratic ineptitude. An unpleasant confrontation between students and administrators at UC Irvine on Thursday may have had some of all three.

Students angry over the lack of progress in implementing an Asian-American studies program occupied the chancellor’s offices, and then when the acting chancellor agreed to meet them on neutral ground they shouted him down, even as he was pledging to work toward creating a program that would meet their needs.

For starters, one has to wonder where we are, 25 years after the April riots at Columbia University, if students in a new generation on an American campus cannot show common courtesy, and with administrators engage in civil communication over a matter as basic as whether the curriculum serves the needs of the consumer.

And yet even with all these obstacles--and the additional burden of a budgetary crisis dragging down even the best intentions for campus reform--it ought to be possible to make a start.

UC Irvine already has found a way to begin an African-American studies program; a Latino studies program soon will be established.

It makes no sense that the university with the largest percentage of Asian students in the continental United States has no Asian-American studies program. Whether the university has been dragging its feet at the highest levels, or whether as acting Chancellor L. Dennis Smith seemed to suggest, it’s up to the deans and faculty, it’s time to move ahead.

As centers of learning, and as custodians of the history and culture of all the world’s people, universities especially can broaden our understanding and help make a democratic society’s diversity its true strength.