By Marcelle Richards
DAILY BRUIN SENIOR STAFF
[email protected]
Student Empowerment! and Students United for Reform and Equality
both claim to be the ultimate student advocate.
They’ve even whittled their platforms down to similar
frameworks ““ support BruinGo!, laud the diversity
requirement, favor triples over study lounges. Like clockwork, each
candidate condemns the taboo of raising students fees.
Yet each year, it’s the same struggle between the
incumbent and the political underdog. SURE is only one of many
opposition slates to try to dethrone the Student Empowerment!
succession.
1. Programming for hate crimes, police brutality,
“Know Your Rights” 2. Push outreach efforts, diversity
requirement, more ethnic studies centers 3. Use “student
experience” as education
Students First!, the mother ship slate formed and elected to
power in 1995, included the student groups Samahang Pilipino,
MEChA, Asian Pacific Coalition and the African Student Union. Most
of these groups still rally behind Student Empowerment!
The slate formed in response to the UC Regents’ passage of
SP-1 and 2, which banned affirmative action in UC admissions and
hiring.
Slates usually undergo a “natural progression” in
response to changing issues or changing slate dynamics, said Praxis
member Mike del la Rocha, who won the presidential seat for
1999-2000.
When MEChA broke from the slate three years later, the group
became Praxis, which stands for “reflection and
action,” according to Paulo Freire’s book,
“Pedagogy of the Oppressed.”
The end goal of Praxis was to repeal SP-1 and 2.
When four more groups joined Praxis, it renamed itself Student
Empowerment!. The slate finished off Praxis’ goal to push the
repeal when the regents rescinded their decision in May 2001.
Also joining the scene that spring was the SURE slate.
“It was kinda thrown together,” said David Dahle,
SURE presidential candidate and the only remnant of last
year’s group.
1. Increase USAC visibility with BruinWalk office hours,
surveys 2. Represent “all students” including and
beyond student groups 3. Fund student groups by size, not
“impact” of programming.
SURE, running to displace the dominant slate in power, made a
dash at elections to fill council.
The polls favored a Student Empowerment! majority and President
Karren Lane, who pushed to make the council a
“collective” after a drama-filled year before.
Lane’s new Student Empowerment! slate was reactionary to a
divided council under former president Elizabeth Houston. That
year, council votes were often divided along slate lines, and
meetings were tense.
“Karren did a good job promoting collectivity, especially
after Sept. 11,” said presidential candidate Bryant Tan.
With the repeal under their belts, Student Empowerment! focused
on outreach and the comprehensive review.
Tan, Lane’s possible successor, said the key to the slate
has always been access to education.
“All evolvements are rooted in the same ideology,”
he said.
The plan next year is to take action against Proposition 209,
which bans affirmative action in California, and Regent Ward
Connerly’s Racial Privacy Initiative, designed to make UC
more “color blind.”
Tan also wants to push transportation, housing and parking as
factors of access if elected.
But not if Dahle can help it.
Though he agrees on a diversity requirement and other common
issues like access to UC, Dahle does not want Student Empowerment!
to be the slate to carry those plans out.
They’re too exclusive, he argues. He’s the
descendant of many opposition slate hopefuls. A Viable Alternative
and Students for Ethical Government are a few slate dinosaurs to
run and never surface again.
With goals to dominate council next year, Dahle took the slate
name and himself to put a brand new ideology behind SURE.
“The only thing similar is me,” Dahle said of his
slate this year.
Last year, SURE pushed a platform to create a student senate.
The move was a structural solution to something Dahle doesn’t
see as a structural problem anymore. The problem is how USAC is
run, he said.
It’s why he’s pushing funding reform and making a
promise to represent “all students,” not just the
ethnic groups that so heavily back Student Empowerment!
He realizes the election is a make-or-break situation for his
slate, but regardless of what happens, the rise of opposition
slates will continue in their own reactionary evolution.
“There’s always going to be an opposition slate as
long as Student Empowerment! is in power,” Dahle said.