Chavez Center: UCLA’s Apt Compromise

It is easy to second-guess a settlement that ends a dispute as dramatic and emotional as the hunger strike over Chicano studies at UCLA. Both student protesters and school officials felt deeply that they were standing up for important principles--respect for the city’s largest ethnic group on one side; academic freedom on the other. And both sides had to give in somewhat to reach agreement.

The students and professor who subsisted on water for almost 14 days were demanding a Chicano studies department on the Westwood campus to replace an existing interdisciplinary program under which professors from different departments teach Chicano studies courses. The protesters argued that an independent department, with its own faculty and budget, was more appropriate for the most prestigious public university in the city with the nation’s largest Mexican-American community.

UCLA Chancellor Charles E. Young felt strongly that an interdisciplinary approach allows for better integration of Chicano studies into the general college curriculum. He also reacted negatively, with justification, to heavy-handed efforts by some legislators to withhold state funds from UCLA in order to apply political pressure, an action that came perilously close to violating provisions of the state Constitution guaranteeing the University of California’s independence.

The important thing to focus on now is the common ground that led to the settlement. Both sides agree that Chicano studies is an important academic field and that UCLA should be foremost in its development. Working from that base, the solution the two sides came up with was inspired: establishment of the Cesar Chavez Center for Interdisciplinary Instruction of Chicano/Chicana Studies.

While not the full-fledged department the protesters demanded, the Chavez Center will have much more autonomy, permanence and budget than the existing Chicano studies program. Given the budget constraints facing UCLA and the rest of the UC system in recent years, that seems a reasonable compromise. And naming the center after Chavez, the revered Chicano labor leader whose example inspired the hunger strikers, was especially apt.

Of course, one is tempted to suggest that it should never have taken a dangerous and highly publicized protest to achieve such reasonable results. And perhaps a resolution might have been achieved more easily if overt pressure had not been applied by outsiders, especially politicians.

But that is in the past. The important thing now is for everyone to focus attention and energy on the common ground that has been achieved, and use it as a base not to look back in anger but to move forward with hope.