Sexual violence, accessible education the focus of new USSA campaigns

Members of the United States Student Association voted on Sunday to launch separate campaigns against sexual violence on college campuses and to promote accessible and affordable education for underrepresented students this year.

Fourteen delegates from UCLA took part in USSA’s National Student Congress, which took place at the University of California, Irvine from Aug. 7 to Tuesday. The event was held to decide USSA’s campaigns for the 2014-2015 school year and to train students to organize and to lobby legislators on student issues such as college affordability, said Maxwell Love, vice president of the association.

USSA is a national student-led organization that aims to organize students to address issues at the local, state and federal levels. The organization hosts two national conferences each year, one held at a college campus in the summer and the other held every spring in Washington, D.C., to allow student leaders to lobby their federal legislators on Capitol Hill, Love said.

“At a nationwide level, it’s hard to organize around issues unless you have the power of the people,” said Conrad Contreras, the Undergraduate Students Associated Council’s external vice president. “There are national issues that we can’t address unless we have a national organization.”

Love said he thinks addressing sexual violence on campus has been a prominent issue for campus leaders in the past year, especially with an increase in media coverage on the topic.

Contreras said he thinks 7000 in Solidarity, a campaign against sexual assault at UCLA started by USAC Student Wellness Commissioner Savannah Badalich in fall 2013, has helped educate students and has been important in advocating against sexual violence on campus since its launch. Still, he said he would like to have organizations like USSA, the UC Student Association and his office work more with the campaign.

In terms of USSA’s other new campaign, which seeks to promote accessible and affordable education for underrepresented students, Love said he thinks the topic has been a rising priority for many student leaders he knows. Because affirmative action has been banned in several states in recent decades, Love said he thinks students are looking for alternative ways to make higher education more accessible for underrepresented students.

The congress also passed several administrative resolutions, including a resolution supporting policies to invest in companies that are ethically and socially responsible. After hours of debate, the resolution passed with amendments to remove language involving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

UCLA students sponsored several resolutions at the congress, including one that urged USSA to examine transfer rates for students attending community colleges and the struggles faced by working-class students.

The six-day event also featured a number of workshops. Several speakers, including U.S. Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.), were also present at the event.

On Tuesday, the last day of the event, students rallied at Wal-Mart’s Orange County office to demand a better sick leave policy for Wal-Mart workers.

Negeen Sadeghi-Movahed, a fourth-year political science student and a chief of staff for USAC President Devin Murphy, said she thinks actions like the one on Tuesday can bring more students to speak out.

“The more we get a reaction from people in power, they are going to have to do something about it,” said Sadeghi-Movahed, who was elected as a representative to the Congress Steering Committee, a committee that manages elections and conferences for the USSA.

There will be a USSA Board of Directors retreat in Washington, D.C., in September to further flesh out the two new campaigns, Love said.