Up for discussion: Investment to fight hate

Chancellor Linda Katehi has charged UC Davis to combat hate and intolerance on campus and is providing $230,000 annually in new funding to support the effort.

Following anti-Semitic and anti-gay vandalism on campus in February and March, Katehi called on the Campus Council on Community and Diversity to develop a plan to promote a safer, more inclusive, hate-free campus climate. The university funding, which Katehi announced in a May 5 letter, came out of the advisory body's recommendations.

The chancellor has put a spotlight on creating a hate-free campus since a spray-paint attack defaced the entrance to the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Resource Center and six swastikas were found on campus.

Katehi said the $230,000 is a "strategic investment."

"These are turbulent economic times," she wrote, "but I am confident that investing in a safer, more welcoming campus community will yield returns that are critical to advancing our commitment to diversity and excellence at UC Davis."

The money will be used in three campus programs:

• The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Resource Center will receive $100,000 annually to fund two new positions — an assistant director and a graduate student intern to work with graduate students — and restore some programs. Recently, the director has assumed oversight for the Student Recruitment and Retention Center. "Having an assistant director will allow the center to be staffed at the level consistent with other … centers across the UC system and increase the availability of support for a highly vulnerable community on campus," said Griselda Castro, assistant vice chancellor for Student Affairs.
• The campus will use $100,000 annually to institutionalize mentorship programs that focus on underrepresented, underserved and marginalized students.
• The Campus Council on Community and Diversity will receive $30,000 to fund events, training programs, student positions or other program costs to advance the goal of a hate-free campus.

In her May 5 letter, Katehi said, "Expressions of hate, intolerance and incivility have no place in a university community that prides itself on educating the brightest minds of tomorrow and are inconsistent with the goals of our Principles of Community."

In April, UC Davis leaders reaffirmed the campus commitment to the university's Principles of Community, a statement of values that rejects intolerance and sets the standard for an environment of civility and respect. The Principles were signed by campus leadership in 1990 and previously reaffirmed in 1996, 2001 and 2008.

Earlier, Jim Leach, chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities, brought his 50-state "civility tour" to UC Davis as the first in a series of special programs celebrating the campus's Principles of Community. "There are few greater threats to civilization than intolerance," he told an audience of about 250 people.

The chancellor, four of her top administrators and five students returned from an April 25 visit to the Museum of Tolerance with new insight about how to encourage difficult conversations about hate and how to spur people to action, to foster a climate of civility and respect.