This year marks the 50th anniversary of the California Master Plan for Higher Education. It is an opportune moment to remember that almost since Europeans landed on this continent education has been the site of civil rights struggle. For many decades, college education was primarily for the upper classes only. Americans fought to democratize education throughout the 19th century and into the mid-20th century as we desegregated schools and provided education to more than just a relatively homogenous group of students. Key Supreme Court decisions, civil protests, courageous individuals and groups, and other demonstrations of the public will around these issues drove the effort and we slowly made progress toward providing a meaningful education for all our citizens. The late 1960s and early 1970s might be considered the peak of our nation’s collective will around these issues. Ethnic studies and other related departments were formed. Schools were held accountable. Data were collected. We could see concretely the changes in our institutions. The Master Plan, passed in 1960, demonstrated that California was at the forefront of these issues.
Unfortunately, at some point in the last 30 years, education as a locus for civil rights struggle was lost. Debates over how to collect and report data and what should be measured have become more important than actual progress for people. Today, many pretend that class, race, gender, sexual orientation, physical ability, language, and other dimensions of difference in society do not matter. They say that they don’t see those differences; they only see people. To make such assertions is either to be ignorant of or purposely elide the real disparities that exist in our society, where women still make less than men for the same work, where people of color are still disproportionately unemployed, where the LGBT community still suffers hate crimes, and where the gap between the rich and the poor continues to grow.
City College, along with the other community colleges around the state, is on the front lines of the modern day movement for civil rights. I believe, as I know you do, that education is the key to our state’s economic development and, more importantly, to a more just and tolerant society. Education teaches us to respect and appreciate the differences among peoples. Education provides access to jobs and resources and promotes sound decisions about those resources for future generations. Thus, when we accept the challenge of educating all our students, we are creating the future we want to see.
As we continue to look for ways to close the achievement gap at City College, we should remember that this work is part of a proud tradition of teachers, community organizers, pastors, and other local leaders that stood up for what they believed was right. Every day, watching and listening to my students, I see that the fight for civil rights is just as relevant and necessary now as it was 50 years ago. I recognize the wealth of skills and experiences that my students bring to my classroom and I strive to help them use their knowledge to succeed in the class. Every semester, in the midst of that process—sometimes failing, sometimes succeeding—I understand anew that it will be through working together with our students, that we will close the achievement gap. Each one of us, in our own ways, can contribute to reaching this goal. And when we reach it, our school and our society will more fully realize the vision on which they were founded.
