Alternative Spring Break is a national program that matches 20,000 students each year with 400 community-service sites in the United States and South America. Thirty-eight years after President Kennedy announced the formation of the Peace Corps at the University, conference organizers said the University is a good place to discuss service issues. As a national organization, it's important for Break Away to travel around, and we couldn't think of a finer place to host this conference than the University of Michigan. In the same week that President Clinton praised one of the University's diversity programs, issues of racial justice were prominent at the conference. Goodwin Liu, a Stanford alumnus and Yale law student, opened the conference with a speech that encouraged society to embrace diversity in order to achieve racial justice.
Diversity sees racial difference as a cause for celebration.
We're not all Tiger Woods. We're not all half black and Asian. But Tiger Woods is the future. It's not the end, it is the means to racial justice. Student activists from around the nation said the Break Away conference was a remarkable way to bring together young, service-oriented people.