So in light of this 50-year anniversary
of the assassination of Dr. King what
comes to mind to me is that Dr. King
fought for civil rights and I think in
so many ways education is the civil
rights issue of the 21st century and so
when I think about education and what it
means it means opportunity, it means hope,
it means possibilities. So in light of
this question of whether or not we're
talking about chaos or community we have
to choose community because in so many
ways the issues in the topics that Dr.
King fought for a half a century ago are
still relevant if not worse today. Dr.
King fought for greater income equality.
Today we have unprecedented levels of
income inequality so we have to see
education as a potential solution to
ameliorating those differences. Dr. King
fought for the end of segregated schools
in our country. Today many of our schools
are even more racially segregated than
they were 50 years ago so we have to
choose community over chaos. So much
of what I see is being pertinent to why
UCLA is important because UCLA trains
future educators, UCLA trains future
psychologists, future social
workers. These are the individuals who we
have to work collectively with to help
create more of an opportunity for those
communities that have been on the
fringes looking in. Immigrant children,
children of color, women, homeless youth,
foster youth. So in so many ways UCLA has
to be a beacon of that hope of that
possibility that King talked about when
he said community or chaos. Chaos is
never good for us. I believe that
education has to be the foundation.
Education has to be the platform by
which we begin to increase awareness and
when we increase awareness hopefully we
increase empathy people begin to care
people begin to act and we then become
change agents for our own communities
and our own society.
