UC President Mark G. Yudof points out an oddity of the state Penal Code’s Section 11411:

It prohibits the hanging of a noose for the purpose of terrorizing anyone associated with a school or college campus. The same section also prohibits cross-burnings and swastikas with the intent to terrorize — but this prohibition applies only to private property.

Therefore, Yudof said, the university is considering its own ban on nooses, cross-burnings and other hateful symbols, including swastikas, for the purpose of terrorizing one or more university students, faculty or staff, or in reckless disregard of the risk of terrorizing students, faculty or staff.

He raised the point in a March 29 letter to state Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg. “Please be assured we are committed to diversity and inclusiveness,” Yudof wrote, “and we are unwavering in our pursuit of tolerance, civility and respect.”

Yudof’s letter came in response to a letter from Steinberg and three of his Democratic colleagues — an exchange prompted by recent acts of intolerance in the UC system. They included, at UC Davis, swastikas on a dorm room door and elsewhere around campus, and a graffiti attack on the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Resource Center.

Sens. Steinberg of Sacramento, Gloria Romero of East Los Angeles, Denise Ducheny of San Diego and Carol Liu of Pasadena said they were pleased to read that UC leaders had publicly denounced and condemned recent acts of intolerance in the UC system, and pleased to read of the efforts at some of the campuses to investigate the acts as hate crimes.

“However, we do not wish to rely on press accounts to ascertain UC’s responses to the despicable acts,” the senators said, in asking for a report from UC itself.

Yudof told Steinberg: “We must — and we will — deal with the causes of the offending behaviors, both the immediate and the underlying. We will address the campus climates that give rise to these actions.”

In regard to the latter, Yudof said he will fund a comprehensive study of the climate of each campus “for the purpose of identifying what more can be done to ensure that everyone on our campuses feels safe, secure and welcome, and that Principles of Community are understood and followed.”

Yudof’s letter also covered the same points of action that he outlined the previous week at the Board of Regents meeting:

• The appointment of civil rights expert Christopher Edley, dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law to act as a special adviser to Yudof and Chancellor Marye Ann Fox regarding racial issues at UC San Diego.

• A clarion call to alumni and friends of the university, and all Californians, “to come together and raise scholarship funds that will support under-represented minorities on UC campuses.”

• A review of student-proposed legislation on campus hate crimes.

• A re-evaluation of the admissions process, one that “effectively considers multiple factors in addition to test scores and GPA.”

The senators asked about UC policies that prohibit vandalism of school property with hate speech, such as the painting or carving of swastikas.

Yudof cited the systemwide Student Code of Conduct and its “numerous prohibitions relevant to the incidents we have been experiencing,” including destruction or damage to university property, and harassment based on race, color, national or ethnic origin, alienage, sex, religion, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, veteran status, physical or mental disability, or perceived membership in any of these classifications.

“All individual campuses enforce these rules,” Yudof said. In addition, each campus has adopted Principles of Community,” which, while not enforceable by discipline, lay out campus values.

UC Davis’ principles include an affirmation of “the inherent dignity in all of us” and a rejection of “all manifestations of discrimination.”

Yudof’s response to the senators included a tally of 115 incidents of vandalism involving hate speech in the UC system in the last five years. The counts ranged from one each on the Merced and San Francisco campuses, to 19 each at Davis and Los Angeles.

Of the 19 incidents at Davis, one responsible party had been identified and referred to Student Judicial Affairs for discipline, according to Yudof’s letter. (The ID was not in one of the most recent cases.)

“UC’s policy is to investigate whenever there has been a complaint of vandalism involving hate speech to student affairs or to the campus police, to try to determine who is responsible,” Yudof said.