Let the Segregation Commence: Separatist graduations proliferate at UCLA.

City Journal ^ | 13 Jun 2007 | John Leo

[The Pack Knight]

Commencement weekend is hard to plan at the University of California, Los Angeles. The university now has so many separate identity-group graduations that scheduling them not to conflict with one another is a challenge. The women’s studies graduation and the Chicana/Chicano studies graduation are both set for 10 AM Saturday. The broader Hispanic graduation, “Raza,” is in near-conflict with the black graduation, which starts just an hour later.

Planning was easier before a new crop of ethnic groups pushed for inclusion. Students of Asian heritage were once content with the Asian–Pacific Islanders ceremony. But now there are separate Filipino and Vietnamese commencements, and some talk of a Cambodian one in the future. Years ago, UCLA sponsored an Iranian graduation, but the school’s commencement office couldn’t tell me if the event was still around. The entire Middle East may yet be a fertile source for UCLA commencements.

Not all ethnic and racial graduations are well attended. The 2003 figures at UCLA showed that while 300 of 855 Hispanic students attended, only 170 out of 1,874 Asian-Americans did.

Some students are presumably eligible for four or five graduations. A gay student with a Native American father and a Filipino mother could attend the Asian, Filipino, and American Indian ceremonies, plus the mainstream graduation and the Lavender Graduation for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered students.

Graduates usually wear identity-group markers—a Filipino stole or a Vietnamese sash, for instance, or a rainbow tassel at the Lavender event. Promoters of ethnic and racial graduations often talk about the strong sense of community that they favor. But it is a sense of community based on blood, a dubious and historically dangerous organizing principle.

The organizers also sometimes argue that identity-group graduations make sense for practical reasons. They say that about 3,000 graduating seniors show up for UCLA’s “regular” graduation, making it a massive and impersonal event. At the more intimate identity-group events, foreign-born parents and relatives hear much of the ceremony in their native tongues. The Filipino event is so small—about 100 students— that each grad gets to speak for 30 seconds.

But the core reason for separatist graduations is the obvious one: on campus, assimilation is a hostile force, the domestic version of American imperialism. On many campuses, identity-group training begins with separate freshman orientation programs for nonwhites, who arrive earlier and are encouraged to bond before the first Caucasian freshmen arrive. Some schools have separate orientations for gays as well. Administrations tend to foster separatism by arguing that bias is everywhere, justifying double standards that favor identity groups.

Four years ago Ward Connerly, then a regent of the University of California, tried to pass a resolution to stop funding of ethnic graduations and gay freshman orientations. He changed his mind and asked to withdraw his proposal, but the regents wanted to vote on it and defeated it in committee 6–3.

No major objections to ethnic graduations have emerged since. As in so many areas of American life, the preposterous is now normal.

[Tulane]

All I can really say is, does anyone think it might be covered differently if this sort of thing was going on at Ole Miss or Georgia Tech?
________________________

Amen.

[traditional1]

Do they have separate ceremonies for:

Italian-Americans

German-Americans

Irish-Americans

Anglo-Americans

White Heterosexual Americans

Chritian-Americans

Jewish-Americans

Canadian-Americans

etc., etc.

?

OR, are they discriminating there, too?

[Jaysun]

Seems like the entire 60’s was a bust.

Damn hippies. They put us on a speedboat for the waterfall that lies at the end of Sh*t Creek.

Thank God for making it so that everyone eventually dies. Once they're dead we can clean up the mess. And if they out live us, well, at least we'll escape the hell they've made.

[Nea Wood]

They forgot to say when the white, heterosexual Christian graduation ceremony is! I’m sure that was just an oversight.

[6ppc]

Some students are presumably eligible for four or five graduations. A gay student with a Native American father and a Filipino mother could attend the Asian, Filipino, and American Indian ceremonies, plus the mainstream graduation and the Lavender Graduation for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered students.

So many potential jokes, so little time! ;^)

[wastedyears]

California going down the drain.

[Cuchulain]

“I,m so confused”, said the adopted straight son of two lesbians, one of which is a 1/2 Black, 1/2 American Indian Muslim and the other a 1/2 Mexican, 1/2 Asian atheist

[Historix]

lol, I graduated from UCLA last year. Most people who aren’t screaming for special recognition just graduate at the ceremony for their respective school (Arts and Letters, Science, ect...)I remember laughing about this same subject last year. This is a result of the race first analysis that professors love to teach. These people are the biggest racists and never recognize the fact.

[antiRepublicrat]

Promoters of ethnic and racial graduations often talk about the strong sense of community that they favor.

How about the "community" of the entire college? This reminds me of the Weird Al song with "transsexual Nazi Eskimos."

[Red Badger]

Sad, that everything that MLK and all thoe people who died in the Civil Rights era, fighting against is now demanded. Like they died for nothing..........

[seemoAR]

Only white males can be racist. :0)

[LantzALot]

Rule #1:
If liberals do it, it's okay.

Rule #2
Even if it's bad, see Rule #1.

[Polyxene]

So much for integration and assimilation...........
(loud flushing sound inserted here)

[Roberts]

bump