UCLA student Jacqueline Alvarez told The College Fix as much in a recent telephone interview, standing behind an op-ed she wrote in the Daily Bruin campus newspaper detailing the same.
She described the conference not only as an “oppression Olympics” but also “a safe space gone wrong” in her opinion article.
Ralph Washington, president of UC Student Association, which organized and hosted the conference, confirmed there were “tensions” at the mid-November gathering, and that its schedule was altered.
“The Students of Color Conference is always a space when tensions get a little high,” he said in a phone interview with The College Fix. “This mirrors that nature of our lived experiences. But this year there was a lot of harm thrown around to the various organizers, and some people came into the conference without understanding what the theme of the conference was. There are constructive things that we can do to prevent this happening in the future.”
“I think that sometimes in conferences schedules are changed to meet a more pressing need. It isn’t a problem when those who are organizing the conference change things around to meet the needs of participants,” Washington said.