Heaven forbid…
No one’s denying the nub of a report roiling the political waters onSonoma State University’s tidy, green campus: The 48-year-old stateschool has become a Wine Country destination for well-to-do whitestudents, many of them women from Southern California.
But the report’s conclusions and the intentions of its author,sociology professor and activist Peter Phillips [peter.phillips@sonoma.edu] are at the center of amaelstrom set spinning two years ago when a 73 percent faculty majorityapproved a vote of no-confidence in Ruben Armiñana, SSU’s presidentsince 1992.
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In the new report Phillips, a vocal critic of Armiñana’sadministration and a 15-year faculty veteran, holds the president andthe California State University’s top leadership responsible forpolicies that Phillips maintains made SSU the “whitest and likely therichest” school in the 23-campus CSU system.
Peter Philips
Students say theevidence of Phillips’ report — a 37-page paper by his investigativesociology class — is right before their eyes on the 269-acre campus,which has developed into an educational oasis on the Rohnert Parkflatlands.
“Minorities are few and far between,” said Mel Arbues,a junior and a Latina from Yorba Linda in Orange County. Diversity isan educational asset, she said: “It opens people’s minds to thingsthey’re not used to.”