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Most UCLA students can walk around all day without once giving a
thought to race. So how is it that year in and year out, the
majority of officers in the Undergraduate Students Association
Council are part of the race-obsessed Student Empowerment!
slate?
The immediate answer of course is that they get more votes than
the other groups. But there’s a real problem when we
understand why their politics are so popular every year.
I would lay a majority of the blame on our student media. The
Daily Bruin has been supportive of student radicalism since the
1995 emergence of the Students First! slate, later called Praxis
and currently Student Empowerment!
The Daily Bruin, as the dominant media source on campus, plays a
major role in informing students and shaping their opinions through
their USAC endorsements.
The pattern of consistent endorsement for a majority of the
Student Impediment! slate, year in and year out, is not a
historical accident, but deliberate promotion of the slate’s
race-based identity politics.
In only one year since 1995 did the leftist slate fail to
capture a majority of the total endorsements (1999), and in only
one year did it receive fewer endorsements than the opposition
parties (1995). In those two years, however, the opposition was
composed of multiple, competing groups, leaving Praxis or Students
First! with the most endorsements of any party.
With such favoritism at work, it’s no accident that
Student Impediment! has controlled a majority of USAC seats since
its 1995 formation.
Even more improbably, Student Impediment! continues to hold
power despite a refusal to focus on real student issues. General
representative David Dahle had the boldness to address the
practical issue of a crosswalk at the intersection of Landfair and
Gayley Avenues. But the Editorial Board, vigilant against such
loose cannonism, scolded Dahle’s dangerous realism.
The Board must have mistaken Dahle for Don Quixote, suggesting
that he tilt at the campus windmills of the De Neve-r housing
fiasco, and the Westwood parking mess. Given enough room, they
would have suggested he solve world hunger too.
Demanding that our representatives solve the unsolvable is the
reason that far-left, radical, do-nothing slack-offs like Karren
Lane are elected as USAC presidents.
Their focus is on “diversity,” “access,”
and “social justice” ““ too vague to ever solve,
but trendy enough to attract media approval.
Why even run when you’re not going to serve the average
student? Dahle’s fellow general representatives Cindy
Mosqueda and Theo Apostol have not done a single thing other than
move into their offices and make themselves unavailable.
That, and receive a base budget almost double what Dahle
received ($2,423 for Mosqueda, $2,167 for Apostol, and $1,205 for
Dahle.)
The Daily Bruin also perpetuates the current system by default.
Its refusal to critique Student Impediment!’s funding abuses
allows the slate to unscrupulously reward its followers.
Each year Student Impediment! lines up its supporting
organizations to gorge themselves at the student-funded money
trough, but leaving only scraps for the groups that dared oppose
them.
Most noticeable this year was the case of the Jewish Student
Union and Muslim Student Association. Both groups are of similar
membership size, and perform the same basic function ““
cultural association on the basis of religion.
Yet in 2001, MSA staggers off to its offices under the load of
$5,203 in student-funded largesse, while JSU is given a piddling
$1,243.
Equivalent groups, equivalent purpose ““ unequal
funding?
This is not only logically incorrect, the inequity is a
violation of the Undergraduate Student Association Bylaws criteria
which require basing funding decisions on the number of students
served.
Perhaps the budget committee can give us some roundabout,
legalistic explanation for how the Muslims, who supported Student
Impediment!, were $4,000 more worthy than the Jews, who did
not.
The Daily Bruin never investigated this disparity, even though
allocation figures were advertised right in its own pages.
But we should expect nothing more. Having brought Karren Lane
and her officers into power with its glowing endorsements, The
Bruin is not about to criticize them. Bash Dahle they can do. But
risk the wrath of the USAC idols they helped to build?
Don’t hold your breath.