Author: Drew Jaffe
In an act of solidarity, student supporters of the Coalition at Oxy for Diversity and Equity (C.O.D.E.) gathered at the entrances of Lower Herrick last Thursday to encourage faculty as they exited their meeting with Dean Jorge Gonzalez. The sit-in was organized for students to express their support for a petition set forth by 56 faculty members to increase diversity and equity on Occidental’s campus.
For many students, the sit-in’s purpose was two-fold: to express support for faculty currently tackling the issue of diversity at Occidental and to encourage others to join the cause.
“Our fates are ultimately linked together… We want to support the faculty that have signed on, but in terms of the faculty who have not signed on we want to show that this is something we’re facing personally and truly put a face to it,” Diplomacy and World Affairs (DWA) major and C.O.D.E. member Kerry Sakimoto (junior) said.
Faculty can support C.O.D.E.’s petition as one step to address diversity on campus.
The petition, entitled “The 29 Actions to Achieve Equity and Excellence,” aims to address issues of diversity on campus and calls the school to match rhetoric with reality, according to politics major and C.O.D.E. member Estrella Lucero (senior).
“People [of color] aren’t prioritized to succeed at this school, but we’re still held up as … tokens to be able to show the world that Oxy is still diverse and progressive,” Lucero said.
Multiple faculty members echo Lucero’s assertion that a disparity exists between how Occidental markets its diversity and the reality of diversity on campus. As and C.O.D.E. member and Politics Professor Regina Freer noted, the school continues to claim the title of most diverse liberal school in the country when the rankings show otherwise. According to U.S. News & World Report, Occidental College currently ranks No. 13 in diversity among national liberal arts colleges, down from No. 1 in 2007. The rankings are calculated by considering the proportion of students of color in the school and the degree to which groups of different race and ethnicity mix.
With the proposal of the 29 Actions – which was signed by 56 faculty and more than 160 students and alumni – C.O.D.E. and its supporters are hopeful that there will be renewed action by the school to strengthen diversity and equity on campus. According to an email from Freer and DWA Professor Movindri Reddy, Dean Gonzalez responded positively to C.O.D.E.’s petition and plans to draft a report addressing the proposed actions by the next scheduled faculty meeting.
“We welcome this conversation. We’re committed to pursuing this agenda. Because this is such a wide-ranging issue that affects so many aspects of Oxy and involves so many people, it’s essential that administrators, faculty and students all work together,” Gonzalez said via email.
The professors ended their email by commenting on the support received from students at the meeting, reciprocating the students’ appreciation for supporting increased diversity.
“It was an awe-inspiring demonstration,” Freer and Reddy said.
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