The Undergraduate Students Association Council passed a resolution Oct. 18 calling on multiple Los Angeles city council members to resign.
Council president Nury Martinez and councilmembers Kevin de León and Gil Cedillo made racist and homophobic remarks about other council members, LA District Attorney George Gascón and the child of a council member in a leaked recording, according to the LA Times. Nury Martinez resigned from her council seat Oct. 12, and the resolution, along with condemning the words of the three council members, calls on de León and Cedillo to resign as well.
De León is also a former faculty member at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs.
The resolution’s passage shows that the UCLA community plans to hold the council members accountable for their actions, said Phoebe Chiu, the USAC facilities commissioner and co-sponsor of the resolution.
“(It’s) making sure that we, as UCLA students, as constituents of the city of LA, we can have our voice heard that we don’t accept this kind of behavior in our city council,” she added.
USAC is united in its fight against racism, said Naomi Hammonds, a USAC general representative who co-sponsored the resolution. Hateful language and beliefs are a larger-scale issue and make students feel uncomfortable in the spaces they are in, she added.
“This language affects students like me,” she said. “It fuels impostor phenomenon and my sense of belonging in these spaces.”
The resolution also states that this type of behavior is not tolerated by student government representatives, including USAC members, Chiu said.
“I think it’s important that the USAC Council also holds themselves to that level of responsibility,” Chiu said. “I think we all just wanted that expectation to be there for all student and government officials everywhere.”
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