La Voz de Aztlan
Los Angeles, Alta California
January 18, 2002NEWS BULLETIN
CALIFORNIA: Fairness in Selection of Chancellor for UC Riverside called for by Latinos
California Mexican-Americans and other Latinos are mobilizing in order to guarantee a "fair process" in the selection of the next Chancellor of the University of California at Riverside (UCR). A growing coalition of groups that presently includes The National Alliance for Human Rights, California State LULAC, Impacto 2000, and others will be meeting Saturday January 26, 2002 in Riverside to formulate a "Plan of Action" to ensure that the selection is done in a fair and equitable manner.
Presently, in a state where Latinos comprise 35% of the population, there are no Chancellors in any of the nine University of California campuses due to persistent ethnic discrimination in higher education. The last and only Chancellor of Mexican descent was Tomás Rivera, 1935-1984, who passed away while holding the office. California is presently headed for an educational crisis of major proportions because of the burgeoning Mexican-American and Latino K-12 student population and the lack of structural change in the rigid, racist, xenophobic and unresponsive, mostly White and Jewish, higher education bureaucracy.
The time has come for Mexican-Americans and other Latinos to undertake vigorous but constructive actions to reform a higher education system that is shortchanging our "brightest of the brightest" and often miseducates them. The coalition is asking for a national effort to tear down the barriers that are keeping our university and college administrators and students as second class citizens. The coalition plans to, in addition to undertaking an effort to guarantee a "fair" selection process of the next UCR Chancellor, form a national organization of faculty and students to also guarantee that the same is done in other states where Latinos reside. More information on this effort can be obtained at 1-909-787-4577 extension 1822.
Please distribute this bulletin widely among students, faculty and interested community organizations and individuals.
La Voz de Aztlan has two articles that address the problem. They are:
"The Dearth of Latinos in Campus Administration"
by Professor Roberto Haro - San Francisco State University"ALTA CALIFORNIA: The Coming Latino Educational Crisis"
by Hector Carreon, Publisher - La Voz de Aztlan
