Submission: Students should value increased representation before UC Regents

On Thursday, the Daily Bruin’s editorial board published a piece claiming that the regents’ consideration of a proposal to add an additional student voice on the board will do no good.

The editorial suggested that any expanded opportunities for student representation on the board, without actual voting power, is unlikely to make any difference – in fact, the piece even claimed that the current voting student regent has little chance to make an impact.

The Daily Bruin’s Thursday editorial is a classic example of the fruitless and unnecessary cynicism that has held students back from progress in the realm of student representation for decades.

Does the Bruin think that students are going to gain equal and fair representation in the governance of our system overnight?

Since the position of student regent was approved by California voters in 1974, student activists have fought tirelessly to gradually strengthen the power of the student voice.

READ MORE: Letter to the Editor: Additional student adviser furthers conversation for future of the UC

And though they might not all publicly admit it, I am confident the regents themselves would agree that the value and ability of the students involved in shared-governance has increased notably over the years.

In the past year alone, the University of California has divested from private prison corporations and fossil fuel companies, expanded its efforts to combat campus sexual assault, poured money into finding difficult solutions to the growing housing and homelessness problem, and, most importantly, avoided a massive tuition increase for resident students.

To deny that students played a crucial role in every single one of these accomplishments would be to suggest that the regents took on these issues simply “because they care.”

READ MORE: Submission: Shame on the Daily Bruin – student voices are crucial to UC governance

Perhaps I missed the memo. Since when did students start thinking that the 25 non-student, mostly old white men who make up the rest of the board had our best interests in mind?

Without students, none of these changes would have been made. And it wasn’t just students from the outside who made an impact; the legitimately-recognized roles on the board which students have fought so hard to establish for themselves – the student regent, student observers, student advocates to the regents and systemwide committee representatives – were absolutely fundamental to all of these successes.

As the DB’s Aram Ghoogasian opened his piece, “Students must put pressure on UC Regents to have voices heard,” quite succinctly last July: “The University of California Regents aren’t our friends.”

Well, the student adviser is. The adviser, coming from a complementary academic background to the student regent, will bring forth the opinions of many students who wouldn’t otherwise have a chance to share them.

Having a vote is only one small part of the equation. Students have achieved tremendous successes through other means – through the ability to contribute meaningfully to board and committee discussions and have private and personal conversations with regents as well as the President (who many would argue holds much more power than the Regents themselves); the student adviser will add to these.

I’m tired of hearing students complain that our efforts to make our higher-education system better for all of us aren’t working.

I’m tired of our efforts being brought down by those who have made no effort and proposed no better solutions to combat the very real problems we all face.

Cynicism can and should be left to real politics, not this.

We are all students. We all want more representation, and we agree on most of the issues. So why not work together?

Sands works in the student regent’s office as Avi Oved’s director of policy. Sands was also a Daily Bruin News contributor from 2014-2015. He is a second-year business economics and political science student.