Dahle is a USAC general representative.
By David Dahle
Has anyone in the Undergraduate Students Association
Council’s ruling Student Empowerment!/Praxis slate ““ or
whatever else the red-shirted candidates decide to call themselves
this year ““ ever tried to gather your opinion on anything, be
it academic policies, state or federal issues pertaining to
students, housing or transportation problems, etc.? Your answer is
probably “No.”
After serving for the past year as a USAC officer, I see
first-hand how crippled our campus government system is as a result
of Student Empowerment! domination. Student Empowerment! makes
little or no attempts to gather student opinion. Worse yet,
students eager to join student government are often turned off by
the fact that working in a council member’s office is mostly
contingent on sharing the Student Empowerment! ideology.
The foundation of responsible governance is leaders who
accurately represent their constituents’ needs and opinions
““ not their own agenda. Student Empowerment! officers often
ignore this responsibility.
The sad fact is that campus politics are often polarized around
racial issues. Students often believe that if they do not side with
underrepresented groups, they will be seen as opposing them. This
dichotomy makes anyone who does not side with Student Empowerment!
seem like they don’t value or care about minority rights,
which unfortunately mischaracterizes almost everybody.
Campus politics does not have to be a zero-sum game; disagreeing
with Student Empowerment! does not mean you disagree with the goal
of diversity and fighting for student rights. There are many
minority students, like myself, who agree with the majority of
Student Empowerment!’s goals but disagree with the way they
try to achieve them. The abrasive tactics they employ turn off
potential administrative allies, and alienate many students.
Student Empowerment! hypocritically preaches tolerance but does
not tolerate anyone who in good faith disagrees with them. Student
Empowerment! espouses diversity but excludes groups who are not in
their coalition from equal funding, council support, and
representation. Student Empowerment! claims to work for the good of
all students yet only focuses on a narrow set of issues and
neglects the needs of the rest of campus. Student Empowerment!
works against any kind of commonsense reforms, such as online
voting, because they currently benefit from the status quo. Student
Empowerment! declares that they “empower” students, but
they do not actively create avenues for USAC participation because
anyone involved in student government who is not in their coalition
is seen as a threat to their power.
The machine politics that currently drives USAC must stop in
order to have a student government that is fair and representative.
The campus apathy toward USAC is directly linked to the narrow
interests and low visibility of student government. Most students
probably do not even know what USAC does even though a portion of
student fees are allocated to it every quarter.
You may be asking, “Why would any group seeking to
“˜empower’ students discourage student
involvement?” The answer is that if students remain
uninformed and are locked out of student government, they will be
much less likely to vote. Decreased voter turnout means that
Student Empowerment! will once again sweep into office almost
uncontested.
Is this the vision of USAC that should be perpetuated? Hold your
representatives accountable and vote for candidates who will
promise to make USAC the fair and representative government that it
should be.