Submission: USAC bylaw changes could erase history, silence students of color
By Daily Bruin Staff
Nov. 23, 2015 6:41 p.m.
As a first-year African-American transfer student here at UCLA, I thought I would walk into a welcoming environment where my voice and activism would be respected given my position of marginalization. Instead, I experienced many instances of racism and microaggression. For example, the “Kanye Western-themed” party during Black Bruin Welcome Week. I did not think it could get any worse. However, on Nov. 17, 2015, the Undergraduate Students Association Council voted to amend its bylaws to prevent resolutions from subjecting the welfare of students to “substantial harm.” Moreover, past and future resolutions have been relegated as simply the opinions of those councils that passed them.
Taken at face value, this amendment seems reasonable because no one wants to harm students on campus. However, this amendment is a major power grab by the council in an attempt to silence marginalized communities on campus; in the past, some found the activism of students of color to be divisive and dangerous to campus climate. Bruins for Israel and other groups launched a campaign in 2014 to limit resolutions that only deal with “campus issues” after last year’s council voted in a landslide to divest from companies that profited from human rights abuses against Palestinians. The result of the campaign is the passage of an amendment that further silences students like me – not that I’m surprised – who now would find it more difficult to voice concerns on a campus that has proven, time after time, that black lives are not a priority.
Ultimately, this resolution is detrimental to racialized students of color by giving those in positions of power and privilege the authority to decide on our validation through the use of a vague definition of student welfare. In addition, the amendment attempts to erase the history of students of color on this campus by invalidating our historical campaigns against oppression and relegating past resolutions as simply the opinion of those councils.
Letting the council have the authority to decide whether or not our resolutions are valid through the use of their definition of student welfare is unacceptable because it can invalidate the oppression of various communities. For example, if undocumented students wanted to re-introduce a resolution calling for the use of “undocumented” as opposed to “illegal” because of the term’s dehumanization, a student group who supports the use of “illegal,” could object to its passage. Their potential argument? Its passage would accuse them of dehumanization for simply invoking the language of U.S. immigration laws, thus, harming their welfare.
The council might have to consider such possible harms. What if black students want to introduce a resolution that condemns various acts of racism on campus, including the “Kanye Western-themed” party that the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity and the Alpha Phi sorority threw? What if they, along with others in Greek life, came to their defense by claiming, as they already have, that their offensive displays of stereotypical black culture had nothing to do with race? The council might consider objecting to the resolution based on the harm to their welfare. These examples illustrate just how problematic this amendment is for communities of color on campus.
In addition, USAC’s attempt to invalidate past resolutions is a slap in the face to students who worked on historical campaigns such as the movement to divest from South African apartheid, a movement important to the African diaspora. If this amendment was in place, it could have easily prevented UCLA’s place in the history books.
Why would Bruins United, the slate that unanimously approved this amendment, insist on unilaterally usurping power from the student body because some don’t like the fact that students of color have the audacity to utilize their student government to give themselves a voice? It’s bad enough that the societal power structure renders communities of color voiceless, so it’s shocking that USAC would do the same. It seems to me that this university is a microcosm of how racism and oppression work outside their parameters. First, the oppressed rise and they make progress; then, there’s a backlash by nonracialized benefactors of the societal power structure who utilize the system through legal action, thus, the sustained oppression of communities of color.
Members of USAC, you do not have the right to decide, especially when you’re in a position of privilege, when black and brown bodies matter, nor will I stand idly by as you attempt to erase our people’s history. This attempt to hurt our communities will not go unchallenged; we will mobilize for our rights and demands. You attempted to erase our struggles from this campus – you have failed, for our struggles can never be erased. Every social justice resolution ever passed because of our activism still stands and lives on. As far as I’m concerned, you are not my council and you do not speak for me – you never could.
Gardner is a third-year political science student.
