In UC's Plan To Ease Tensions On Campus, The Money Comes Before The Plan

The Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel shocked UCLA graduate student Felicia Graham.

“I have an 8-year-old, so I’m a student parent, I was devastated by the loss of civilian lives,” she said. “In addition to the heartbreak there was this impending feeling that this is going to rock the campus this fall.”

Her intuition was right, and now UC President Michael Drake pledged this week to spend $7 million to help ease tensions that erupted on campuses after the Israel-Hamas war.

Drake said the funds will be split like this:

• $2 million for employee training on freedom of expression and diversity, equity, and inclusion
• $2 million for campus programs that counter antisemitism and Islamophobia, as well as those programs focused on a "viewpoint-neutral history of the Middle East"
• $3 million for emergency mental health services

That promise has many unknowns: When will campuses receive the money? Will the campuses with higher profile conflicts, such as UCLA and UC Davis, receive more? Will the funds create new programs or fund existing ones? Will there be restrictions?

Drake’s office offered LAist no details on Thursday, saying the president’s team will “begin to work with campuses.”

Where could funds go?

Graham is in the fifth year of her doctoral studies in UCLA’s school of education. She was active last year in student government, but in May signed on to a program in-the-making that spoke to her values as a socially engaged person. It’s called Dialogue Across Difference.

“[The program] recognizes that while there’s individual intellectual engagement that we as researchers and educators are engaged in, there's less intellectual engagement across lines of difference,” she said.

Graham is guiding 15 student “ambassadors” who will create events and interactions on campus to nurture empathy, active listening, and critical thinking skills among students and university employees. UCLA faculty and administrators gave Dialogue Across Difference the green light because of concern about the growing culture of conflict in the U.S.

Graham and the creators of Dialogue Across Difference believe the announced funds could help their program scale up to dozens of ambassadors doing work across the 46,000 student university.

“I hope [the funds] can go towards building something that can be sustained, that can be long lasting, that can have reach… not just a Band-Aid,” she said.

Concerns about safety

The efforts are urgent. For the last several weeks, students attending rallies have worried about their safety.

“I have thought, at various points in the last 40 days, that the intensity of feelings could lead to violence,” said UCLA history professor David Myers, who directs Dialogue Across Difference.

He knows his own school has been rocked by extreme political violence. In 1969, for instance, two people were shot and killed in Campbell Hall over differences between Black activist organizations.

UC student activism, Myers said, has a storied legacy that includes the Free Speech Movement. Dialogue Across Difference should not be about snuffing out activism, Myers said, but rather “to allow for student activism in ways that allow activists to be heard and listened to and to do so without inflicting damage on one another.”

Legislators pressure universities to act

The university previewed its $7-million spend in a public statement issued last Friday, railing against Islamophobia and antisemitism and promising action:

The university system’s leaders have been trying to show urgency, especially as lawmakers have called on them and leaders of California State University to address incidents of hate. Lawmakers have attributed their public criticisms to concerns they've heard from students.

The Department of Education also reminded colleges and universities earlier this month that schools have obligations "to provide all students a school environment free from discrimination based on race, color, or national origin, including shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics."

New CSU Chancellor Mildred García has not made a spending announcement like Drake’s. Four days after a public rebuke from state lawmakers, Garcia issued a statement saying she has directed campuses to be more vigilant about student safety and acts of discrimination.