Dirks’ resignation is just the tip of the iceberg

As a rising senior at Cal, I’ve been receiving emails from the university since before I even took my first class. Many of them come from “Nicholas Dirks Chancellor,” and as any Berkeley student knows, those go straight into the trash, unread.

At the beginning it wasn’t anything personal, they were usually updates about campus reopening after a power outage, or routine holiday wishes. But the more I became privy to Dirks and his, let’s just say, poor decision making, the more satisfaction I felt when sending those emails to the garbage.

Imagine my surprise when I, along with my peers, received an email titled “Announcement from the Chancellor” late yesterday afternoon. Though not entirely foreboding a subject line, it begged to be read. Chancellor Dirks indicated he would be stepping down from his post, but buried in the text was admission that he’d still be around on faculty.

He said: “I pledge my total commitment to ensuring a smooth transition as I leave this post. And I look forward to joining on a full time basis the distinguished faculty that was my primary reason for moving to Berkeley in the first place.”

Some of the biggest complaints against Dirks have been his lack of action against major faculty at the university who’ve been accused of sexual harassment, and his excessive spending on things that people deem unnecessary. Though many of the violators of UC Berkeley’s sexual harassment policies have been disciplined, many argue that they’ve not received the punishment they deserved because the university values the funds and research they bring to Cal’s bank account.

This is a rising complaint across college campuses nationwide, and something that Dirks never put his foot down over. It sets a terrible precedent for other universities, and our own.

Furthermore, in the summer of 2015, a fence was built around his home, located on campus. It’s original champion was the former Chancellor Birgeneau, who got the fence approved for $270,000. When the project was completed, it had cost a total of $699,000. Cal students were incredibly, and justifiably, upset about campus funds being spent on what they deemed frivolous.

Initial reactions were plenty and varied; as many friends remarked to me, they didn’t know exactly how this was supposed to mean anything to them, but they’d seen both support and scorn for the decision. I myself recall gasping rather movie star like, because I just couldn’t believe it was true.

One of Cal’s biggest flaws is that it’s just too large a university to make well-intentioned decisions all the time. Companies that get too big can’t stick to their original mission statement. The same is true for major academic institutions. Cal isn’t always putting its students first: there are politics standing in the way.

Juan A. Prieto,
rising senior, summed it up best:

“Dirks represents a part of a larger problem with his seat. He’ll move on to lecture and earn money built upon the student debt that as a Chancellor he did nothing to stop, and fade behind lessons where the harshest critiques he’ll get will be on Rate My Professor.

“Meanwhile, a new character will take the public scorn for all the terrible secrets Berkeley has kept as it relates to sexual assault, they’ll be blamed for the cuts in programs that Dirks did not plan on saving, and ridiculed for having a luxurious mansion while low income students struggle with homelessness.

“Dirks leaving solves nothing, besides to place the responsibility of this trackless train on a new conductor who’ll be too preoccupied with his public image to take any radical measures that’ll retain low-income students, especially of color.”

It’s true that Dirks has appeased the few who believe he’s solely responsible for some of our community’s problems, but the truth is, he’s only a tip of the iceberg. Cal can do a lot better at protecting and advocating for every type of student it admits through its doors. This may be a step in some direction, but for now, no one is sure it’s forward.

@thefriscobay