A California university has announced it is “banking on the existence of conservative students on campus” in order to be successful, according to a position paper penned by a student senator.
In the soon-to-be-published pamphlet, students of the University of California at San Diego discuss plans to reduce staff and retain funding for police as well as prioritise leftist student groups.
Conservative students are therefore “given the opportunity to be part of the solution to the problem of campus bias, diversity, and discrimination”.
Titled “Consequences of Supporting Campus Civility: How to Make Diversity the Whole Point of College”, the organisation does not restrict its criticism to political debate.
“Recognising differences of opinion does not require you to acquiesce to opinions you disagree with,” it argues.
“Instead, by supporting the existence of conservative students on campus, and the campus process of defining tolerance, you recognise the principles that should guide the continued free exchange of ideas on campus.”
In regard to the country’s political climate, the report asserts that Republicans have been “punishing and marginalising minority groups” in the past decade, the Daily Caller reports.
The document also stresses the importance of LGBT community, stating that “blunt insults and the ridiculing of the LGBTQ community” will not improve life on campus.
Conservative students are therefore “given the opportunity to be part of the solution to the problem of campus bias, diversity, and discrimination”.
The manifesto, according to the Daily Caller, means “a campus where conservatives are seen as normalised” and where ‘diversity of voices is seen as something to be desired’ will be forthcoming.
Chancellor Pradeep Khosla and Provost Daniel Weick issued a statement saying that the paper’s findings “reveal a student body deeply concerned about the campus climate and its role in advancing UCSD’s mission and core values”.
However, its heavy criticism of the country’s political climate has been met with some criticism.
“I would worry about creating a campus environment that is intolerable to conservatives,” UC San Diego student leader Harry Ostrom said, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.