UCLA

In accordance with the 1983 mandate from Assembly Constitutional Resolution 71 (ACR 71), the University of California was charged to incorporate a requirement in the Undergraduate General Education curriculum. To be inclusive of the experiences of people of color and those of women, the first proposals sought to implement an ethnic and gender studies requirement. Subsequent efforts to revisit the issue resurfaced as a proposal for a “Community and Conflict Requirement” to mask an overt diversity curriculum from more outspoken critics. The final version of the proposal passed under the title of the Diversity Requirement in 2015. Regardless of the public title, students and staff had mobilized to compel the university to adopt the requirement for all students to fulfill by graduation.

Between the 1980s and 2015, Asian American students at UCLA successfully organized

a campaign for the university to adopt an undergraduate diversity course requirement into the general education curriculum. Situated in the historical struggles for Ethnic Studies, the establishment of the UCLA Asian American Studies Center (AASC) in 1969, and the subsequent expansion of student-initiated retention and outreach programs, many of these students held formal and informal ties to the AASC and Asian American Studies Department at UCLA. This thesis explores the student organizing history for UCLA’s Diversity Requirement with particular attention on the leadership roles of Asian American students. I find that Asian American students have been the most consistent advocates in this effort and have managed to evolve their organizing strategies as they continue to reinvent the movement for curricular reform according to their environment.