Panel Told of Race, Sex Bias at UC Campuses

At an emotional hearing at UCLA, student leaders complained to legislators Tuesday about racial and sexual harassment at all UC campuses and charged that university administrators are not doing enough to make minorities feel welcome.

The allegations came in testimony before the state Senate’s Special Committee on UC Admissions. Its chairman, Sen. Art Torres (D-Los Angeles), said he convened the session partly in response to the violent dispute last spring over the disqualification of a Latino’s election as UCLA undergraduate student body president.

Effects of Incidents

“It cannot be denied that racial incidents destroy the very core of the institution and tear at the moral fabric of the university,” Torres said.

In the most dramatic testimony Tuesday, Dinnah Donato, a Filipina, sobbed as she recounted how she accidentally bumped into another UCLA student on campus. Donato said she apologized but that the other woman told her, “Why don’t you go back where you came from!”

“I found myself having to defend my right to be here and having to defend who I am,” Donato said. State Sen. Diane Watson (D-Los Angeles) walked around the U-shaped table to hand the young woman a tissue.

With another comment, Donato sparked a dispute between Torres and UCLA Chancellor Charles E. Young. According to Donato, Young told student leaders last week that Torres was seeking political mileage out of the hearing.

Pressed by an angry Torres, Young denied making such a statement but apologized for what he conceded was his questioning whether the hearing was the best way to handle campus problems.

“I should have had more sense,” Young told Torres.

Officials’ Denials

However, Young and other UC officials strongly denied charges that UC administration does little to attract and keep minority students and faculty. But Young added that he wished progress in boosting minority presence was faster, especially in recruitment of graduate students and professors.

Last week, UC President David P. Gardner gave his nine campuses until Jan. 1 to come up with improved plans to ensure that the campuses better reflect “the cultural, ethnic and racial diversity of the state.”

Michael Meehan, the Anglo student who eventually was elected UCLA undergraduate president after much confusion last spring, said the hearing represented continuing hostility between chancellor Young and Dean Florez, the committee’s consultant who was the student body president two years ago. A spokesman for Torres said that Meehan’s comment “was not even worthy of response.”

Meehan testified that the original winner of last year’s election, Lloyd Monserratt, was legitimately disqualified because of an inadequate academic record, not because of discrimination.

Monserratt said Tuesday that he was qualified to serve as president but that other student leaders and the UCLA administration wanted him ousted because he is Latino and an outspoken critic of Young. In a subsequent election in May, brawls broke out and polling booths were destroyed by supporters of Monserratt.

Students from other UC campuses spoke of racist graffiti, of fraternity theme parties that minorities believe ridicule them and of being given the cold shoulder by Anglo students.