During this week’s diversity events, Chancellor Birgeneau repeated his stand on the issue stronger than ever before:

The day’s closing remarks were delivered by Chancellor Robert Birgeneau, who styled himself as the campus CEO: its Chief Equity Officer. “We must understand diversity in all its aspects,” he told the audience. “Nothing is more important to our mission.”

Birgeneau acknowedged that he was “shocked” to discover, upon his arrival at Berkeley, that the “diversity and camaraderie across cultural lines” he had seen during his tenure as president of the University of Toronto was not replicated here. “I have witnessed too many examples of alienation, mistrust, and division among distinct components of our student body,” he said, noting that the situation is “most evident among the Chicano/Latino, African American, and Native American” students here. “I believe [it] is caused overwhelmingly by the dramatic drop in their numbers” — a phenomenon directly related to the passage of Prop. 209.

Yikes! Where to begin…

According to the University of Toronto’s Race Relations and Anti-Racism Initiatives Office (one would think such a peaceful campus would have no need for one), there wasn’t always “camaraderie across cultural lines” during his tenure. These are from the 2001-2002 and 2002-2003 annual reports, respectively:

Student complaints were in the majority again. Three of the student complaints appeared to stem from the events on September 11th 2001 in the U.S.A. In two of the incidents, graffiti was used to target the complainants while in the third a racial slur was directed at the student who reported the matter to his residence Don who contacted my office. Two of the complaints received in the administrative area were from U.S. citizens who believed that they were deliberately subjected after September 11th to anti-American statements.
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Race and culture were the most frequent components in student versus student conflict as well as with complaints from students about their dealings with the administrative staff.

In addition, even if such harmony did exist during his reign, it has quickly gone to hell:

Jewish groups are condemning the University of Toronto for permitting an Arab student club to hold a weeklong series of lectures entitled, “Israeli Apartheid Week.”

The program, organized by the Arab Students’ Collective, begins Monday with lectures about the roots of what the students call Israel’s ethnic cleansing and segregation of Palestinians.

More on 209:

While the people of California, in voting for Prop. 209, made “what I believe was an honest attempt to create a non-discriminatory system,” Birgeneau said, “they do not see every day what I see on campus: that an effort at non-discrimination has in fact resulted in the creation of an environment that many students of color view as explicitly discriminatory.” Whereas 260 African American freshmen were enrolled at Berkeley in 1997, the number has dropped this year to just 108 — and that has meant “the loss of an essential, supportive community for black students and the resultant creation of an environment which many view, they tell me, as actively hostile.” He hears much the same thing from Chicano/Latino students, he added.

I suppose that an effort at discrimination (affirmative action) will result in an environment that many students view as explicitly non-discriminatory? Sure. And hostile environment… Where have we heard this before? Actually, Birgeneau should know a lot about creating hostile environments. This, from the Toronto Star (via LexisNexis):

November 6, 2002 Wednesday Ontario Edition
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A20
LENGTH: 450 words
HEADLINE: U of T president under fire for remark
BYLINE: Tess Kalinowski, Toronto Star
HIGHLIGHT:
Black parent activist calls comment about diversity offensive
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However, in a remark he later withdrew, Birgeneau added that, “White students too often choose to go to other universities because we are so diverse.”

Birgeneau said yesterday he was quoting a source outside the university when he made the remark, but he wouldn’t specify its origin.

Murphy Brown, of the Organization of Parents of Black Children, said at the meeting she was shocked by the remark. She had attended the meeting to draw attention to the erosion of African heritage classes in Toronto public schools.

Earlier in the meeting, Birgeneau, a former civil rights activist, had said, “My black friends tell me that I look like you on the inside, just not on the outside.”

That remark also drew some negative reaction at the meeting.
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“For him to say white students are not attending the university because there are too many students of colour, that was shocking to say the least,” she said.”I don’t know if he’s a racist. The remarks that he made there were racist,” she said.

Brown said an apology from Birgeneau isn’t enough.

I don’t have a problem with his remarks. But I bet many people on this campus who support BAMN or its goals would take issue. Just bringing these quotes back into the light.

Let us conclude with the scariest part of his speech:

The campus, while engaged in several initiatives to address this problem, “needs to do much more,” Birgeneau said. “The world’s premier public teaching and research university must lead the discussion about the unintended consequences of Proposition 209. We must be the intellectual home for research and education in intercultural competence.” Berkeley must also, he said, “test the legal limits” to see “what’s possible” under Prop. 209. “We can be more aggressive than we have been” in that arena, he insisted, so long as we “respect the law.” Referring indirectly to a Sproul Plaza rally earlier in the day coordinated by the members of BAMN (By Any Means Necessary), a student activist group focusing on similar issues of inclusion and diversity, Birgeneau said he would endorse an organization called BAML: “By any means legal.“

What exactly is he planning? To what extent does he wish to associate himself with BAMN’s ideals?

Don’t get me wrong. The Chancellor seems to be genuinely concerned, but how far is he willing to take his crusade? He’s strikes me as a reasonable fellow, so let’s hope he doesn’t get too carried away…