Chancellor Birgeneau hosts his first episode of Bear in Mind on Berkeley’s NewsCenter. He discusses a variety of issues with his roundtable of yes-men (and women), including Boalt Dean Christopher Edley. I have provided a partial transcript and added commentary below. I mostly focus on the diversity related issues, so watch the whole thing online if you care about the other topics. I also have the approximate times if you want to follow along. Pop some popcorn while you’re at it.

2:15

Voiceover: “But early on, the chancellor discovered a problem. A lack of diversity, students told him, was causing discrimination on campus.“

Or maybe it’s the discrimination practiced by the students crying “Discrimination!” that’s causing discrimination.

2:30

Voiceover: “Chancellor Birgeneau took his call to action publicly with an opinion piece published in the LA Times. A move that generated both controversy and support.”

[student/tool Alan Hong gives his opinion]

Alan Hong: “I read his opinion piece in the LA Times and those were things I was waiting to hear for a really long time. I was really waiting for someone that high up in administration to finally address issues like that. I’m really glad that he stepped up and made that statement.”

Alan Hong, you are officially a tool. I like how they say that Birgeneau’s move has generated both controversy and support, then they proceed to only show some gushing tool. Is it too much to expect an opposition opinion voiced? Someone who doesn’t agree with what the Chancellor is doing?

4:40

Birgeneau: “As you know, I’ve been outspoken over the last month or two about the challenges I see that we face here on the Berkeley campus. I must say that I’ve gotten a really strong response, mostly positive, and overwhelmingly positive from the students. On my way over here, as I was walking across the campus, I hear this loud voice screaming ‘Hey Chancellor!’ and there was one of our undergraduates, who happened to be black, saying ‘Right on, I want you to know I’m there for you.’”
—
Birgeneau: “Pretty gratifying, the response from our undergraduate students in particular.”

The thoughts of Robert “My black friends tell me that I look like you on the inside, just not on the outside” Birgeneau.

I really can’t believe that the response is as positive as he claims. Sure, the Daily Cal loves him, but that’s about it. And the people who go up to him and give him props, are usually people who agree with him anyway. You don’t see some guy go up to Birgeneau and yell, “Dude! WTF!?” Maybe someone should though, if only to deflate his ego by just a bit.

6:05

Birgeneau: “First of all, I don’t criticize 209, at least the original voters. I think it’s plausible that when people voted for 209 they really thought they would produce a system that was fairer. Then I point out the reality of what’s actually happened with respect to blacks, Chicano/Latinos, Native Americans, and other groups in terms of their representation on campus.“

So what about the other groups? Whites? Asians?

6:45

Birgeneau: “The life experience, that I hear from lots of our undergraduates, that this attempt at non-discrimination through 209 has in fact, as I hear it from the students themselves, so this is not my interpretation, but the students interpretation, students of color, that 209, with the drop in numbers, has ended up creating on our campus an environment which they view as explicitly discriminatory. And discrimination is wrong!“

Come again? Discrimination is wrong… but the discrimination that was banned by 209 is right??? Oh, a student of color said it, he must be right.

7:25

Birgeneau: “We haven’t tested the limits properly. We haven’t said how do we actually assess people”

I beg to differ. There was a whole study on the methods the university uses to assess people.

9:40

Birgeneau: “The situation is worse than it appears to be by the current numbers. The reason I think its worse is that, especially at Berkeley, it’s our obligation to educate the leaders of society. So the population we need to be comparing our undergraduate body now, is not today’s population but the population 20 years from now. And if you just look at demography, and you see how California’s population will change inevitably. And you look at our current student body, especially the URM/so called minorities, which are then going to be in the majority by 2025, we have an extraordinarily small number of people from groups that are going to constitute the majority of the California population in 2025. So we’re not educating, here, significant numbers of people who will be the leaders of California as its going to be in 2025.“

Projected population composition of California, 2025

White: 34%
Latino: 43%
African American: 5%
American Indian: 0.4%
Asian and Pacific Islander: 17%
Total: 49,284,744

Source: California Research Bureau, California State Library (via SacBee)

and for comparison:

Percentage Distribution of Freshmen by Ethnicity, Berkeley/Fall 2004

White: 32.7%
Latino: 9.5%
African American: 3.0%
American Indian: 0.4%
Asian and Pacific Islander: 45.1%

Source: UC Berkeley Office of Undergraduate Admissions

Looks like whites and American Indians meet the future quota. So why are American Indians considered URMs? The only way we’re going to boost blacks and Latinos right now is at the expense of Asians, you can’t argue with that. But no matter what kind of affirmative action we implement, we will not reach 50% URM representation at Berkeley (or at any of the other UCs). Maybe a few decades from now, but it is literally impossible at the moment. Not to mention, much of this growth will be from immigrants. And, with the possible exception of some Asian groups, most first-generation Americans will not be qualified to enroll in top-tier universities. What you’re trying to do is impossible, Chancellor. Give up now and concentrate on something doable. Helping to reform K-12 education as a whole is something very doable and very necessary. But this: no.

30:15

Edley: “What’s the single biggest threat to our continued excellence as you see it?”

Birgeneau: “How can we ever be a preeminent institution if we’re drawing our students and our faculty overwhelmingly from 25% of the population. Then we’re leaving out the other 75%. That is white males [referring to the 25%]. So there’s this huge bank of talent out there that we have to make sure we’re developing in that we’re accessing.”

Whoops, slip of tongue perhaps?

31:50

Birgeneau: “A population that looks something like the public provides the kind of exciting environment that you can’t find anywhere else.”

So you’re pushing for diversity because it provides an “exciting environment”? And here I was thinking diversity had some kind of academic benefit. I’m sorry, but movies and video games are more exiting than diversity. Maybe more and better looking cheerleaders too. But thanks for playing.