usac a love hate

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Berger Evan Berger Professor Prescott English 3 May 18, 2015 USAC: A Love-Hate In my two years attending UCLA, I have hardly paid any attention to campus politics beyond impassioned Facebook statuses and pandering—but surprisingly well-designed— Bruinwalk handouts. Seemingly, the most negative campus controversies have stemmed from the Undergraduate Students Association Council (USAC), our student government. Two major parties, Bruins United and Let’s Act, divide the devout community, akin to the Republicans and Democrats of the United States political system. This year, the split grew fanatically torn during campaign season, resulting in falsified accusations, defamation, and dissatisfaction among students. And while USAC does do quality work for UCLA undergraduates, the community is too often noticed for its negative controversies rather than its positive influences. 1

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An essay covering USAC

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Page 1: Usac a Love Hate

Berger

Evan Berger

Professor Prescott

English 3

May 18, 2015

USAC: A Love-Hate

In my two years attending UCLA, I have hardly paid any attention to campus

politics beyond impassioned Facebook statuses and pandering—but surprisingly well-

designed—Bruinwalk handouts. Seemingly, the most negative campus controversies have

stemmed from the Undergraduate Students Association Council (USAC), our student

government. Two major parties, Bruins United and Let’s Act, divide the devout

community, akin to the Republicans and Democrats of the United States political system.

This year, the split grew fanatically torn during campaign season, resulting in falsified

accusations, defamation, and dissatisfaction among students. And while USAC does do

quality work for UCLA undergraduates, the community is too often noticed for its

negative controversies rather than its positive influences.

USAC is UCLA’s student government. Its primary purpose, according to the head

Daily Bruin USAC reporter Kendall Mitchel, is to represent both the student interests on

and off campus. The board is composed of fourteen council members that mimic the

United States’ governing system (with a President, Vice President, etc.), where each

elected representative has the opportunity to serve on the ASUCLA Board of Directors

and Communication Board. Despite the vagueness implicit in the phrase “representing

the students”, the board does decide where to allocate a ton of our money. Paying forty-

three dollars per quarter, every undergraduate student together collectively gives them a

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total of two million dollars to spend on a travel budget, an academic affairs commission

for book scholarships, and a giant contingency fund (Mitchell). Furthermore, the

Undergraduate Student Association Council, much like the American government’s

Supreme Court, has its own judicial system. The Judicial Board (J-Board) reviews any

cases involving officers, commissioners, and other funding bodies with its own

Constitution and Bylaws.

With an election and judicial system in place, the board has been responsible for

impressive events around campus. USAC started the UC Farmer’s Market, the

Apartments Fair, and has funded countless others in the past few years. More recently,

USAC financed larger initiatives to promote great campus security, environmental-

awareness, and budget cuts with: Campus Safety Week, Ally Week, the Den Season Bus

Pass, and Bike to Campus Week. Their biggest most expensive events, Bruin Bash and

the Jazz Reggae Festival, are two of the largest general admission events for the student

body (USAC Committee). But perhaps more significantly however, USAC allocates

funding to student organizations that cater to the needs of smaller, less represented

communities at UCLA, which is in turn what makes the community so ardently divided

during campaign season.

Before elections began however—in one of the most notorious controversies in

recent UCLA history—USAC rejected Rachel Beyda, a Jewish second-year student, from

Judicial Council Board because of her religious identity. Four members of the board at

the time questioned how her religious views would conflict with her ability to form

unbiased board decisions. Outrage quickly spurred on and off campus, as the council’s

interrogative measures resembled prejudices facing Jews across the globe (Nagourney).

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UCLA chancellor Gene D. Block, in response to the furious reactions around the country,

agreed, “To assume that every member of a group can’t be impartial or is motivated by

hatred is intellectually and morally unacceptable. When hurtful stereotypes—of any

group—are wielded to delegitimize others, we are all debased” (Nagourney). As evident,

Block’s opposition to the council decision and open disapproval suggests the magnitude

of USAC’s misguided judgment. The Judicial Board would later vote in Beyda after the

conflict subsided.

For the 2015 election season, the USAC ballot was split between two main party

slates: Bruins United and Let’s Act (as well as one satirical party titled “The After Party”

with the slogan, “Let’s Not Act”) (Frankel). Bruins United (BU) has been around longer

and was founded in 2004 with the premise of expanding the total number of groups that

could apply for event funding. In 2005, the organization filed a petition and lawsuit

against the university to allow Greek, pre-professional, and religious groups to be

considered in the application process (“Bruins United”). According to the Bruins United

webpage:

The belief in equal opportunity for all students was and will always be at the heart

of Bruins United. With a collective 17 years of USAC experience, this election

season, Bruins United is standing up for all students in support of fiscal

responsibility, leadership, and equal access.

Bruins United’s convictions this year were certainly not new, but the group maintained

that its long-running history provided greater credibility to take the house seats.

Let’s Act (LA) was founded on a very similar set of beliefs in expanding

representative power, but they upheld greater focus on historically marginalized

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communities. Founded in 2013, LA claimed to spur change by “achieving diversity

through the recruitment and retention of underrepresented students” (“Let’s Act!”).

Accordingly, the party’s representative slate was comprised solely of minorities at

UCLA. This campaign season, the party’s emphasis diverged somewhat to touch on

recent issues in affordability, or specifically, the spiking tuition prices in the coming

years.

The campaigning in the USAC community resulted in a back and forth clash

between parties fuelled by denigration and accusatory tactics. Most considerably, an

anonymous (likely Bruins United advocate) submitted documents to The Daily Bruin that

revealed members of the Let’s Act slate illegally spending student fee funds on its

campaigns and actively selling marijuana and alcohol to raise revenue (Takteta et al.).

Kristine de los Santos, the Let’s Act campaign manager, wholeheartedly denied these

allegations, asserting that its submitter must have edited the documents to frame the

organization in a negative light. Moreover, the previously active transfer representative,

Negeen Sadeghi-Movahed, maintained, “To be honest with you, I have never seen

anything like this before. It seems like publishing these documents was meant to be

malicious in intent” (Taketa et al.). Evidently, whether valid or not, the exposed

documents were publicized with a malicious, defaming resolve.

USAC has since been criticized for its lack of monitoring in campaign processes.

Writer and senior staff columnist at the Daily Bruin, Aram Ghoogasian, explained, “Even

if the Election Board’s subsequent investigation yielded enough evidence to take

action…the processes currently in place to monitor slate campaign activity are out of date

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an ineffective” (1). He argued that USAC, through its poor supervision, enabled the

outcome of the elections to be influenced over unconfirmed accusation.

Let’s Act members too made false accusations of Bruins United candidates. On

March 27th for example, a Let’s Act member accused Bruins United of handing out

Redbull energy drinks in exchange for votes on the ballot (“USAC Violations”). After the

Investigations Committee examined the allegation however, they determined the

accusation to be entirely fabricated. In just the same week, another Let’s Act advocate

claimed that Bruins United candidates campaigned in unapproved locations—an

allegation that was also determined to be invalid.

Further controversy arose on campus when students and members of Let’s Act

accused Bruins United of homophobic mockery. The BU candidate for the Undergraduate

Students Association Council Financial Supports commissioner, Ruhi Patil, supposedly

made fun of a promotional campaign video made by Erineo Garcia, an open homosexual

(Shepherd). Garcia claimed the response video targeted him and his slate in a personal

way by poking at his feminine dancing and clothing (Shepherd). Soon after, Patil was

pushed to release an apology to any and all students who were offended by her jests. This

conflict further demonstrates the shaming and hostility reported during USAC campaign

season.

By the time elections were over, Bruins United had secured seven of the nine

contested positions, leaving Let’s Act followers devastated. Devin Murphy, the former

USAC President and an active Let’s Act advocate, said he felt robbed of representation as

a person of color. “This time is different, this time we lost our hope. I’ve never felt as

hurt as I do tonight,” he described on election night (Wang). Likewise, the LA candidate

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for Academic Affairs commissioner, Kevin Casasola, explained how the results infuriated

him; he felt that voters made his issues as a queer Filipino seem irrelevant and

unimportant (Wang). Let’s Act supporters too felt overwhelmed with similar

disappointments, for as evident in the Daily Bruin election response video, many LA

followers were openly shaking their heads, tearing up, and some even growing

belligerently upset with the election’s outcome. Ultimately, USAC is a necessary

organization, but with the community’s political nature and followers so impassioned,

campaign seasons seem to end up more hostile than constructive.

Work Cited

Frankel, Jillian. Spring USAC Election to Feature 25 Candidates (2015): n. pag. Daily

Bruin. UCLA, 3 Apr. 2015. Web. 19 May 2015.

Ghoogasian, Aram. "USAC Must Close Loopholes Allowing Illegal Campaign

Fundraising." Daily Bruin. UCLA, 1 May 2015. Web. 21 May 2015.

"Bruins United 2015" RSS. N.p., 2013. Web. 19 May 2015.

Mitchell, Kendall. "The Basics of USAC." Interview. Audio blog post. DailyBruin.

UCLA, 7 Apr. 2015. Web.

Nagourney, Adam. "In U.C.L.A. Debate Over Jewish Student, Echoes on Campus of Old

Biases." The New York Times. The New York Times, 05 Mar. 2015. Web. 20

May 2015. <http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/06/us/debate-on-a-jewish-student-

at-ucla.html?_r=0>.

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Shepherd, Katie. "Students Call USAC Candidate’s Parody of Opponent’s Video

Homophobic." Daily Bruin. UCLA, 20 Apr. 2015. Web. 20 May 2015.

Taketa, Kristen, Jillian Frankel, and Kenall Mitchell. "Leaked Documents Allege Illegal

Campaign Fundraising by LET’S ACT!" Daily Bruin. UCLA, 27 Apr. 2015.

Web. 19 May 2015.

"UCLA Undergraduate Students Association." UCLA Undergraduate Students

Association. UCLA, n.d. Web. 19 May 2015.

USAC Committee. USAC Selected Officers Accomplishments (n.d.): n. pag. USAC

UCLA. UCLA, 2014. Web.

"USAC Violations." Daily Bruin. UCLA, 2014. Web. 17 May 2015.

<http://dailybruin.com/usac-election-2015/#violations>.

"VOTE LET'S ACT!" Lets Act Committee, 2015. Web. 19 May 2015.

Wang, Angie. "Bruins United Dominates Council after Controversial Election Season."

Daily Bruin. UCLA, 1 May 2015. Web. 20 May 2015.

<http://dailybruin.com/2015/05/01/bruins-united-dominates-council-after-

controversial-election-season/>.

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