Opinion & Editorial

EDITORIAL Diversity, Equity, Inclusion: Buzz Words in Higher Education

District Ignores its own Pledge

BY KATHARINE FORD

Diversity, equity and inclusion are current hot topics in community college education. The Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD) has an Office for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. LACCD Chancellor Dr. Francisco Rodriguez has a diversity message on the website regarding the district’s commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion.

“As an essential part of building and maintaining a genuinely inclusive community on campus, we confront intolerance and racial or ethnic bias when we encounter it, and we do not tolerate racial discrimination, sexual harassment or any other form of offensive discrimination when it appears on campus,” states the chancellor’s message.

Collegian staff members have examined the problem many disabled students encountered when they attempted to access services they needed for academic success.

When looking at the responses some students received to their requests for services, materials and tools, we, as college students, need to ask: Does the LACCD practice what it preaches regarding diversity, equity and inclusion?

In the article “Disabled Students: ELAC Fails to Accommodate” by Collegian Editor-in-Chief Sorina Szakacs (Spring 2022, Issue 2) we read about the responses students received when they requested services from the Diversabilities Support Program & Services (DSP&S) office, located on ELAC’s Monterey Park campus. For example, it was reported that one student was told that she could enroll at a different community college if she did not like the services offered at the college she attended.

From Szakacs’ report we learned the District is challenging the lawsuit filed by a couple of disabled students (Payan, Mason v. LACCD). The District’s challenge, if successful, would have grave repercussions for the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

LACCD is challenging the lawsuit based on the assertion that the lack of accommodations provided these students was unintentional.

Recall the message by Dr. Rodriquez on the Office for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion website states “any form of offensive discrimination when it appears on campus” will be confronted. However, rather than confronting the “offensive discrimination” encountered by the students and exposed by the lawsuit, LACCD seems to be rationalizing the discrimination.

We have often heard that ignorance of the law is not a defense for breaking the law. Therefore, regardless of whether discrimination is intentional or unintentional, discrimination needs to be confronted, addressed and resolved.

If the LACCD genuinely believes that all discrimination should be confronted to assure diversity, equity and inclusion on all nine of its community college campuses, they should accept responsibility for the unintentional discrimination perpetrated on students in the past, present, and future.

Running on Empty

BY LARA BARNEY

If you’ve been reading the news, you will have that Gavin Newsom just proposed a bill that would provide a $400 relief stipend for auto owners in California regardless of income.

The new bill comes after gas prices reached nearly $7 a gallon at the pump over the last couple of weeks. The cap is two cars per household, so don’t worry, Jay Leno and his 181 cars won’t benefit from this too much. While this is a big relief for most Californians, the headlines of this bill ignore a large population in Los Angeles County: the carless.

When I read this headline, I was happy to see that relief is coming for the exorbitant gas prices. But I couldn’t help thinking, what about the little guys in L.A. that get looked over, year after year?

Looking closer at the bill, Newsom did address the riders by setting aside $2 billion of the $11 billion proposed to give public transportation riders free rides for three months. Now that’s all good and dandy, but I doubt that will sway car drivers to ditch their rides for public transit.

Every day over 300,000 people take Metro Rail and 600,000 people take the bus. I am one of those people. What can I say? I moved here from New York City where public transit is king. I wish I could use it more, but there are some serious fundamental problems that make it impossible to utilize other than out of necessity.

Thirty percent of riders in L.A. wait over 20 minutes for a bus or train. Whereas in New York and New Jersey, only 14 percent of people wait that long. Sometimes in L.A., your bus blows right past you or doesn’t come at all. I’ve also heard concerns of safety in the Metro Rail station tunnels.

Whenever I take the Metro Rail, I notice the deserted stations, too--not a policeman or safety officer in sight. To make matters worse, some buses only service the city from 5 a.m. to 11 p.m., with many buses stopping their routes well before then. That makes it impossible for people who work later than 11 p.m. to actually use the service.

I would love to see more Angelenos using the bus instead of turning their nose up at it. The list of benefits from using public transit is a mile long: Reduced emissions, accessible transit for handicapped people, affordable alternative to expensive cars and reduced DUIs are just a few of the good things that could come with an improved public transit system.

It feels like year after year, the city of L.A. is completely looking over those who rely on public transit. What about us?--we who have been going green and taking public transit, both willingly and unwillingly, day in and day out.

Eleven billion dollars is a lot of money. I wonder what could happen if we redirected those funds toward getting more frequent buses and extended transit hours. If L.A. had a better public transit system, maybe we wouldn’t be so worried about these gas prices and maybe drivers wouldn’t need so much of a bailout.

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Let Students, Employees Grow Cannabis on Campus

BY DANIEL MARLOS

Students who study at community colleges should be permitted to grow marijuana on campus, including the community garden at L.A. City College.

The Ecological Society of America (ESA) published a study in November 2021 that investigated the increased interest worldwide in gardening during the COVID-19 shutdown. One of the study’s conclusions asserted “… gardening can increase opportunities to interact with nature close to home, and might systematically and simultaneously enhance global public health, well-being, and ecological outcomes long after the COVID-19 pandemic ends.”

This implies that gardening might help save humankind and the planet, a relevant Earth Day concept. There are numerous benefits to allowing students to learn gardening while growing marijuana at LACC. Both medical and recreational marijuana are legal in California. Many students have conditions, including anxiety, that justify the use of medical marijuana, and many students enjoy recreational marijuana.

Most students struggle with budgeting their money. Most students don’t have access to a place to grow a tomato much less a marijuana plant; and if they regularly buy both, they will save considerably more money growing cannabis to consume than they would growing tomatoes.

Historically, there has been a disproportionately high percentage of African-American and Latinx men incarcerated for the possession of marijuana, a demographic that is represented at LACC. That demographic might learn skills that can be used for entrepreneurial endeavors now and in the future. A vocational certificate of achievement in cannabis-culture might develop into a new curricular program if students are permitted to grow marijuana on campus.

LACC already has a community garden known as The City’s Garden that is supervised by the life sciences department and Professor Sean Phommasaysy, a botanist who can teach students to properly care for their plants, including marijuana.

Students might spend more time on campus studying if they have to water and care for plants they are growing.

A security fence, a campus that is closed at night, and the protection of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, thwarts any threat of theft of the students’ crop.

The ESA has already determined that gardening benefits the individual, society and the planet, and if it takes growing marijuana to introduce students to those benefits because it is something they will want to grow, that is good.

It is understood that students should not smoke on campus, but what is the harm in them growing some “herb” in The City’s Garden?

Stranded: War, Racism Traps African Students in Ukraine

BY ANGELA JOHNSON

The discrimination that African students are reporting on social media as they flee the Russian-Ukrainian war zone is all at once disgusting, astounding and heartbreaking. My heart breaks to see videos of young African women and men who report they have been held hostage in Sumy, Kherson and Medyka. They are running out of food and water. African refugees who were able to get out and as far as Lviv-Holovnyi Railway Station were not allowed to board the trains because of the color of their skin. This is global racism on display.

Using twitter hashtags #AfricansInUkraine, #BlacksinUkraine and #BlackForeignersInUkraine, African people shared personal stories and second-hand accounts of brutal abuse, discrimination and racism while trying to flee the war zone.

Reading reports of Ukrainian border security and Polish border authorities stopping Africans from boarding trains and buses, in some cases actually kicking them off the bus, makes me sick to my stomach.

Ukrainian nationals are prioritized and expedited to safety, while Africans and other people of color languish in the harsh cold elements.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has two big problems on his hands. Yes, his country is being indiscriminately bombed and leveled to the ground by warmongering Vladimir Putin. Yet in the midst of the hail of bombs and bullets, Ukrainian nationalist neo-Nazis, who have infiltrated the military are now rising. They are seizing this war as their opportunity to discriminate against and brutalize “non-Ukrainians,” specifically foreign African students who were attending university in Sumy, Kherson, Kharkiv, Kyiv and Lviv.

President Zelensky needs to denounce the racism, white supremacy and discrimination visited upon Black people within his country’s borders. While he is asking for (and receiving) all of the military aid he wants and needs to win this war, he needs to also say loud and clear that he is categorically against what has been happening to African refugees. Full stop.

Universities in Ukraine offer high-quality education apparently for a fraction of the price elsewhere in Europe. According to the Ukraine Education Ministry, there are 16,000 African students matriculating in the country.

These are obviously the bright stars of the countries they come from including Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Gabon, Egypt, Morocco and India. These students embody the hopes and dreams of their parents,

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Editor-in-Chief SORINA SZAKACS

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Copy Editors SORINA SZAKACS ANGELA JOHNSON DANIEL MARLOS

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Reporters JUAN MENDOZA, JOHN JOHNS, SORINA SZAKACS, CHRISTIAN CHAVEZ, LOUIS WHITE, POUPY GAELLE NGUESTOP, DIANA CAMPBELL, DULCE GALVEZ, LARA BARNEY

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CITY VIEWS

How do late spring classes help you stay on track with your educational goals?

COMPILED BY DULCE GALVEZ SKYE D’ERCOLE Major: Music

The late start classes are good because I like to get classes finished in a short period of time and to get them done quickly if I have a busy schedule. The late start classes are good if you need to catch up on credits or units in order to graduate within a time frame.

VIOLET PHOENIX Major: Digital Design

The late start classes in my opinion help when you are willing to go back but if you don’t have to, wait until the enrollment period. The late enrollment classes help me get to the door faster, transferring and getting a degree much faster.

CHRISTIAN LAZO Major: Music

Late start classes help me with my educational goal by keeping me focused and helping me with timing.

BRANDEAUX LAZO Major: Photography

I feel as if they help stay with my goals because I am able to do the class in a shorter amount of time though there is a bit more work and things do feel a bit more crammed. It also helps that I can choose to pick up a class in the middle of the semester that I might just want to get out of the way, instead of waiting till the summer or the next fall semester.

INK STYLE

Illustration by Michael Sitar

FROM “WAR” PAGE 2

family members and communities. They deserve the same human rights as Ukrainians. That goes without saying, but I feel compelled to say it.

While monitoring the news coverage of the Russian-Ukrainian war on KCBS-2, KNBC-4, KTLA-5, KTTV-11, or even CNN, I did not see one news anchor utter a single word about the plight of the African students who were trapped in the middle of the chaotic war and exodus.

My eyes were glued to the TV screen starting March 1. At no time during the mainstream network television news reports about the war did they come out and say African people need help to leave Ukraine. The story initially broke on social media, Twitter, Instagram, news media websites carried the story, but not TV broadcasts.

I didn’t see one single reporter nor anchor on mainstream network television mention that African students are trying to flee the country, but are victims of racism and discrimination. Not one mention during the hundreds of hours of coverage. That’s a problem.

“Democracy Now” independent news program covered the plight of the African students in Sumy briefly, early on in their war coverage. By the time the second weekend of war rolled around on March 12, “CBS Sunday Morning” did a report using video that was seen first on social media March 2.

NBCNews.com covered a group of students who coordinated their own rescue efforts. At every turn the African student refugees were being denied assistance.

Black Women for Black Lives (https:// twitter.com/BW4BL_official; blackwomenforblacklives.org) used social media to connect and help almost 1,000 African refugees escape the war zone. There are many more African refugees who need help to escape.

For updates on refugee rescue, fundraising information, resources, support, go to the following hashtags: #AfricansInUkraine, #BlacksInUkraine, #BlackForeignersInUkraine, #BlackPeopleinUkraine. #NigeriansInUkraine #BlackInKherson #AfricansInKherson #StudentsInKherson #SaveKhersonStudents #CaptiveInKherson #AfricansInUkraine, https://twitter.com/ BW4BL_official, blackwomenforblacklives. org.

We, the African Diaspora, need to wake up and act like we see global racism. Because global racism sure in the hell sees us. In the midst of blistering war, global racism sees Black people. Global racism has seen Black people since the year 1619. This is something we must never forget. Global racism always sees Black people, and we better recognize that FACT and act accordingly.