Arthur Wang: UCI’s response to R50-70 compromises student government’s independence

Hundreds of decisions are made by collegiate student bodies every day around the country. Not all of these decisions are airtight, but they aren’t scrutinized because few expect young people to be perfect politicians.

One can only imagine how taken aback two representatives at the Associated Students of University of California at Irvine felt this weekend when their attempt to address the placement of a previously nonexistent American flag in the lobby space of the student government offices mutated into their nationwide condemnation as ideological traitors. Even more shocking is the UCI administration’s total acquiescence to the misguided media frenzy.

The context and timeline of events leading up to resolution R50-70 make it clear that neither representative campaigned for a systematic removal of American flags. The resolution is a “housekeeping issue … we don’t care about any other flags on campus,” said co-author Khaalidah Sidney, the ASUCI representative for the UCI School of Humanities. “(ASUCI President Reza Zomorrodian) is launching his political career out of this – the reaction is for personal gain.”

According to New University, the flag was first posted in the ASUCI lobby as “a decoration” by the member of the Office of Student Services, and was subject to several rounds of being removed and reposted by students and the executive office, respectively.

When the flag was reposted the third time with a note informing aggrieved parties to contact their legislators, students took the request seriously. Resolution authors Matthew Guevara and Sidney took action by responding to their constituents. Over the course of two months, numerous students “had concerns and felt afraid” about the flag, said Guevara, an ASUCI representative for the UCI School of Social Ecology.

After the resolution passed Thursday, Zomorrodian, representing the executive cabinet, swiftly condemned the legislature in a statement Friday.

“We will be having a conversation about this piece of legislation and deciding what course of action the cabinet will take collectively,” he wrote. The cabinet vetoed the legislation Saturday.

UCI administration then released a statement the same day in total concurrence with the cabinet, calling the resolution “misguided,” and according to reports, calling on the legislators who supported it to apologize.

The statements ignore the chronology in which the flag became an issue to students and obscures the fact that Zomorrodian offered no input to the legislative branch about the resolution until he released his statement. His decision to unilaterally issue a press release about an easy-to-misconstrue campus problem created the deleterious unintended consequence of vilifying Sidney, Guevara and the university.

The beleaguered authors assert that Zomorrodian’s flashy pledge of allegiance to the flag was self-aggrandizing and transformed the debate from campus squabble to a matter of patriotism. He has since commented on the issue in multiple publications, including a Fox News opinion piece where he waxes poetic about flag and country.

But the most deeply unsettling consequence of the legislation has been the administration’s heavy-handed and coercive response that compromises the independence of ASUCI, and the freedom of speech. UCI’s rapid support for the executive cabinet’s position in its Saturday statement and its failure to mention how the six legislators who supported R50-70 have been harassed suggests that the school is more concerned about public image than the protection of students.

The absurdity of the discussion reached its peak when politicians chimed in. State Senators Janet Nguyen and Pat Bates mulled introducing legislation to prohibit flag bans on all California public colleges and universities, again ignoring the quite trivial context in which the issue arose.

In choosing to accept the media narrative of the anti-American flag ban, all outraged parties have neglected to view this issue for what it is – petty politicking among formative student-politicians that happens to involve a cultural object that makes for an attractive emotional outrage story.

Sidney, Guevara, and four other legislators have received harassment, hate mail, and death threats for their imperfect resolution and as consequence of Zomorrodian’s political maneuvering. But UCI is acting even more poorly by shrugging its shoulders and persuading its students to agree with the administration in a vain effort to recover its reputation.

The totality of the situation harkens to Cold War McCarthyism. And that is truly un-American.