Our Four-Point Plan

for a Safer, Stronger UCLA

Enhancing community safety and well-being. Fostering a culture of engagement, learning and dialogue across difference. Promoting freedom of expression in line with University of California and campus policies. Continuing to evaluate and improve how we support our diverse community.

These efforts encompass our new four-point plan for a safer, stronger UCLA launched in fall 2024.

We invite each member of our community to help us foster a healthy academic community and engage with the numerous initiatives and programs that will be rolled out as part of this initiative. This site will continue to be updated with pertinent events and action items supporting the plan.

“By investing in efforts that advance safety, respect and mutual understanding, my great hope is that UCLA can continue to be a model of inclusive excellence and a place where every Bruin — regardless of background or identity — is able to thrive.”

Darnell Hunt
Interim Chancellor

A commitment to inclusive excellence

At the heart of the four-point plan is a commitment to inclusive excellence — the recognition that UCLA’s diversity gives our university and its community great strength. As a campus that promotes inclusive excellence, we must protect the ability for Bruins of all backgrounds and identities to feel safe, welcome, respected and able to participate fully in campus life. We may not always see eye-to-eye on important and topical issues, but if we engage one another with respect and empathy, we can both grow as people and maintain a healthy academic environment for everyone.

Below is a summary of the four components of the plan as well as initial efforts in each area.

Enhancing community safety and well-being

Pictogram of 3 people with heart above them

A safe campus environment is the foundation of our university. Maintaining a safe environment is what allows our students, faculty and staff to focus on learning, working, living and growing.

This past spring, The Office of Campus Safety was created in recognition of the fact that UCLA urgently needed a senior officer, reporting directly to the chancellor, dedicated to holistically coordinating our campus safety efforts. Oversight and management of our policing operations and emergency management programs now fall under this office.

We are grateful to Rick Braziel who, with just a few days’ notice, stepped into the newly established leadership role to help address several immediate needs: managing UCLA’s response to major demonstrations in the final weeks of the spring quarter and ensuring that we could hold the commencement ceremonies our students and their families deserved. Braziel also initiated a review of UCLA’s safety protocols and police response to the events of last spring — which he will present to Interim Chancellor Hunt’s leadership team in October, and which will be shared publicly.

Moving forward, while the Office of Campus Safety will continue to address safety issues related to campus demonstrations, it will have an adjusted and expanded charge. Incorporating guidance from recent reports on campus safety developed at both the systemwide and campus levels, the office will coordinate and enhance UCLA’s safety efforts across all areas, implementing approaches that take into account the varied perspectives and lived experiences of all those who make up our diverse community.

Priorities for Office of Campus Safety leadership are to:

Continue meeting with and listening to members of the campus to gain additional perspectives on policing and community safety
Help our leadership team continue to improve policies and procedures for addressing potentially dangerous situations on campus
Strengthen systems for notifying the campus when emergencies arise; and
Educate our community about our safety practices.

UCLA must be a place where we address community safety concerns effectively and fairly, and the Office of Campus Safety, with its expanded charge, will play a central role in making this so. Yet beyond safety, UCLA’s sense of community has also been shaken by recent events on campus. Another aspect of this first part of the plan will entail community healing and rebuilding efforts led by Student Affairs; the Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion; and the Semel Healthy Campus Initiative Center.

Fostering a culture of engagement, learning and dialogue across difference

In a diverse community such as ours, part of our learning and growth comes from engagement with viewpoints we may not agree with or readily understand. While this may be uncomfortable, it is also what helps us deepen our thinking, weigh different approaches and consider new ways of looking at an issue. Ultimately, it advances truth, knowledge and understanding.

A precursor to such engagement is seeing one another as real people shaped by complex backgrounds and experiences — not as simple stereotypes. That is why UCLA provides anti-discrimination training for our employees and students. Last fall, approximately 95% of new students voluntarily took the training; it is our goal to have 100% of incoming students participate this year.

Not only must we recognize one another’s humanity, we must also learn to engage respectfully. In line with this, UCLA is substantially expanding its Dialogue across Difference (DaD) initiative, which will now move under the banner of UCLA’s Bedari Kindness Institute. Sady and Ludwig Kahn Professor of Jewish History David Myers, who leads the DaD initiative, has been named director of the institute. UCLA staff member and nationally recognized facilitator Maia Ferdman will serve as deputy director.

New Dialogue across Difference programs beginning this fall include:

A speaker series called Compassionate Conversations, where experts from campus and beyond will engage in challenging but empathetic conversations on topical issues. The next installment will take place on Dec. 10 at the Skirball Cultural Center featuring a conversation between Reza Aslan and Prof. Miriam Udel. Read more and RSVP for the program here. Future Compassionate Conversations programs will feature Dr. Jamil Zaki (February), Dr. Adam Philips (February), and members of The Parent’s Circle-Families Forum (April).
Speaking Across Conflict Workshops, offered to Bruins to help them delve deeper into a core skill for having more constructive conversations across charged political differences. Workshops for staff, faculty and students were held in October, with more to be announced. These workshops use the methodology of nationally recognized nonprofit Resetting the Table.
Expanded facilitator training program to help academic and administrative units build up a bench of facilitators to manage interpersonal conflicts
New student internship program
Teaching fellows program featuring 16 faculty from across campus who will share the principles of effective dialogue with their academic colleagues

You may sign up for updates from the Bedari Kindness Institute about these efforts, and institute leaders have also shared information about upcoming offerings with the Bruin community.

These campuswide efforts add to those happening within our schools and individual units. For instance, the David Geffen School of Medicine has partnered with an L.A.-based community organization, NewGround: A Muslim-Jewish Partnership for Change, to conduct workshops in engaging across difference. The UCLA Library hosts community-building sessions for its employees and offers dedicated processing circles that allow colleagues with a range of perspectives to connect with one another through shared values. And UCLA’s First Year Experience program has chosen the book The War for Kindness — focused on how we build up our capacity for empathy — as the common experience for all incoming students to read.

Promoting freedom of expression in line with University of California and campus policies

We lift up the free expression of ideas as fundamental to UCLA’s academic mission and to the search for truth. Aside from an institutional value, it is also a right: As a public university, UCLA is barred by the Constitution from prohibiting speech or other forms of expression based on the viewpoint of the speaker.

While we support the ability of our community members to make their voices heard, UCLA — and all other universities — also maintains policies that govern when, where and how community members can express themselves, called Time, Place and Manner (TPM) policies. These policies are designed to allow students to express themselves in ways that do not jeopardize community safety or disrupt the functioning of the university.

UCLA’s TPM policies have been updated to comply with directives recently issued by the University of California to all 10 UC campuses, and were shared with the community on September 4, 2024. Members of the campus may provide feedback on the new policies during the 60-day comment period. At the start of the academic year, UCLA will share additional information and relevant policies related to free expression on campus.

Continuing to evaluate and improve how we support our diverse community

The last component of our four-point plan for a safer, stronger UCLA is a commitment to continuous improvement in our policies, protocols and actions. UCLA is a spectacular place, but it is by no means perfect. When challenges arise, we must prioritize reviews of our systems and approaches, and then make improvements based on those reviews.

At present, the University of California and UCLA’s Office of Campus Safety are each reviewing the university’s safety protocols and police response to the events of the spring. In addition to its regular work enforcing UC’s anti-discrimination policies, the UCLA Civil Rights Office is conducting a review of reports of antisemitism and anti-Arab or Islamophobic discrimination and harassment that may have interfered with students’ abilities to access the university’s educational programs and activities under the systemwide Anti-Discrimination Policy.

A commitment to rigorously studying the challenges we have faced and how we have addressed them — and making changes based on those findings — is essential if UCLA is to best serve its important academic mission and meet the needs of its students, faculty and staff.

Watch: Our Four-Point Plan for a Safer, Stronger UCLA

Our four-point plan for a safer, stronger UCLA focuses on the areas of safety and well-being, engagement across differences, free speech, and internal improvement.