Diversity and Equity

Whereas, Through the California Virtual Campus - Online Education Initiative, the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office has facilitated Canvas as the course management system for California’s community colleges, and participating colleges are using Canvas for online, hybrid and web-enhanced classes;

Whereas, Many LGBTQ+ students use a preferred name instead of their legal name and face discrimination or harm if forced to respond by their legal name;

Whereas, SB716 (2019, Mitchell) requires county probation departments across California to ensure that incarcerated youth with a high school diploma who are detained in a juvenile hall have access to public postsecondary academic and career technical courses and programs, and community colleges are the best equipped to offer the courses and provide programming on site at the juvenile detention facilities and on campus once students are released to continue their educational pathways;

Whereas, Amidst the struggle for civil rights and equality, California State Senate Bill 164 (Alquist) was put into law on September 4, 1969, establishing Extended Opportunity Programs and Services (EOPS);

Whereas, Extended Opportunity Programs and Services was established to “encourage local community colleges to establish and implement programs directed to identifying those students affected by language, social, and economic handicap…and to assist those students achieve their educational objectives and goals” (California Education Code §69640);

Whereas, Resolution 3.03 F17 directed the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges to “revise the 2002 paper Student Equity: Guidelines for Developing a Planand bring the revised paper to the Fall 2018 Plenary Session for discussion and possible adoption”;

Whereas, The Academic Senate for California Community Colleges (ASCCC) co-chaired the Board of Governors Vision for Success Faculty and Staff Diversity TaskForce and contributed to the creation of a system Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Statement;

Whereas, The ASCCC Executive Committee endorsed the California Community Colleges Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Statement at its August 2019 meeting to forward to the Board of Governors; and

Whereas, The California Community Colleges Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Statement characterizes the California Community Colleges System as follows:

Whereas,Hiring procedures for new faculty is an academic and professional matter (Education Code §87360[b]), and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) [1] prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of disability, and the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has determined that individuals with HIV/AIDS meet the definition of people with disabilities [2];

Whereas, California law (AB 620, Block 2011) requests annual transmittal of summary demographic data reporting to the legislature regarding sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression of students, and California Education Code §66271.2 communicates a concern for obstacles faced by our lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual, and other (LGBTQIA+) students;