We Demand Change at UCSD

We, the undersigned, are students in the sociology department and members of the UCSD community.

We recognize that the events of the past few weeks - the Compton Cook-Out, the use of racial epithets and references to lynching on student television, and the hanging of a noose in Geisel library - are not isolated occurrences. They are the direct results of UCSDs institutional failure to rectify persistent, structural inequities pertaining to recruitment and admissions, accessibility and retention for traditionally underrepresented students. The administration must address these structural inequalities.

We demand real transformative action.

We demand that the UCSD administration:
*Implement the Black Student Unions demands in accordance with the BSU timeline.
*Implement the recommendations of the 2007 Yield Report.

We also demand that the administration ensure that the students who have been working to repair the campus climate receive adequate time and support to finish their academic work for this quarter: they should not be subject to academic penalties for doing the work of the administration.

We commend the administration for committing to match the funding for Spaces, keeping the mural on Peterson, and funding minor programs in Critical Gender Studies, African-American Studies, and Chicano-Latino Arts and Humanities. However, much more work remains to be done, and done now. We call for the university to make the important structural and systemic changes that will promote a more diverse and more representative student body.

We recognize that an important part of achieving this diversity is keeping UCSD affordable and accessible. The proposed tuition increases would make a UCSD education ever more unattainable for traditionally underrepresented students. We will not stand for this. Despite the budget cuts, real changes must be made, and students must not be made to bear the costs.

We call upon the administration to take a real stand for equality.