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By Aimee Glocke

I would like to comment on the Viewpoint submissions that were published in the Daily Bruin regarding the addition of a diversity general education requirement (The Forum, Viewpoint, May 26). As a graduate from a university system that required a general education component in either women’s studies or racial and ethnic studies in order to graduate, I can relate personal experience to many of the issues that are currently being debated.

I have spent most of my life in La Crosse, Wisconsin. After having lived in London for the summer, I moved here in September to pursue my master’s in African American studies. The university system in Wisconsin is very similar to the system in California.

I spent one year at the University of Wisconsin, Superior, and finished my last three years at the University of Wisconsin, La Crosse (two hours outside Madison). There was a mandatory diversity requirement for graduation that students had to complete a certain class in either women’s studies or racial and ethnic studies.

This was a requirement no matter what college or school you were from. Many different professors taught this class, but all sections covered the same material. I can only speak for the racial and ethnic studies class (since that was the one that I took), but it was on cultural issues that Native Americans, Asian Americans, African Americans, Irish Americans, European Americans, and Latinas/os deal with. This class was inclusive of all different racial and ethnic groups.

This type of class did not inhibit anyone from graduating in four years. It was also not a class that included “white” or “male” bashing since Europeans were included within the class curriculum as well.

What this class did was force my campus, which had a population of 10 percent students of color, to interact with people of other cultures. When I was there, we had about 8,000 students on campus, meaning only 800 were students of color. In a situation like this, students tend to stick to their own ethnic groups. Is that their fault?

Is it an African American student’s fault that another student only has friends who are white because the white student expects the African American student to seek them out for diverse interaction? We all have to step out of our “comfort zones” and interact with people of all different ethnic groups. Is it the student of color’s job to teach everyone about his or her culture? No. It is all of our responsibilities to learn about each other.

Another great advantage to the diversity requirement was that not only did the students have to attend class, but attendance at one diversity event offered on campus was also mandatory. This got the students out of the classroom and into real life. We go to a university. We are expected to graduate knowing a diverse range of subjects: math, science English. If we did not want this, then we should have gone to a technical college. But we chose a university, and learning diversity does not only mean math and science, it means learning about each other as well.

Being a white student in African American studies, I have dedicated my life to teaching myself and others about diversity. When I first moved to California, I expected it to be a haven of diversity and open-mindedness. The more time that I spend here, the more I do not see it. I did not see it with the passing of Propositions 21 and 22 and I do not see it within the debate for why there should be a diversity component in the general education requirements. Why is there a debate?

We are here to learn as much as we can about as many different subjects as possible. So adding another requirement makes all of us better and more well-rounded students. I took the racial and ethnic studies class knowing most of the information about African Americans, but still learned many different things about Native Americans and Asian Americans that I had not known before. This requirement forces us to learn about things that we may think we know, but do not.

It makes me wonder why a place such as Wisconsin, which lacks diversity and has an abundance of racism and hate crimes, has a university diversity requirement with no debate. Here in California, where the façade of acceptance and understanding seems to be a public consensus, adding this requirement has become a huge debate. It makes me wonder why, since I cannot think of one legitimate reason why such a requirement should not go into effect. It also makes me realize that this place called California gives off a great façade of diversity, but that’s it.

The number of students of color have drastically dropped. Should their voices be abolished too? Requiring everyone to learn about other cultures lets those who do not have a voice on this campus to speak about their experiences.

After the abolishment of affirmative action, the UC system showed that diversity does not matter anymore. Maybe UCLA does not care about diversity any more either. Adding this requirement can’t make up for this, but it is a start. This is one step that would prove UCLA cares about diversity as much as it says it does.