civility

The value of diversity on our campus can be described as a civil state of conflict among different groups of people. If we don’t recognize this delicate balance holding our campus up, we may allow the collapse of the very diversity we cherish.

This fall, the campus celebrates the achievements of the 1964 student movement that made Berkeley famous for extending the First Amendment’s definition of free speech to the University of California.

Those were my thoughts upon reading Chancellor Nicholas Dirks’ message of Sept. 5. It came late on a Friday afternoon — one of those irritating, one-way messages that signs off in bold, “Please do not reply to this message,” thus clothing an imperative — “do not reply” — in the language of civility: “please.”

An email sent Friday from Chancellor Nicholas Dirks to faculty, students and staff proved controversial among some UC Berkeley faculty after it called for politeness in campus discourse.