Ryan Nelson: USAC ethical investment resolution should be split into three texts

Last Tuesday, members of the Undergraduate Students Association Council attempted to take on the responsibility of holding themselves and the school responsible for their financial investments.

Through a single proposed resolution, three council members called on USAC, UCLA and the University of California to disinvest from any company that violates human, worker or environmental rights.

The notions of workers’ rights, environmental sustainability and human rights are still heavily contested today and it’s a long uphill battle for any institution, especially a student-run organization, to accurately define all three in a way that won’t draw ire from some group or another.

Instead of bringing the resolution to the table as one overarching, broad document, as the original did, splitting the document into three separate texts would foster more in-depth exploration of each issue.

With its role as a representative body for thousands of students, USAC is well-positioned to set the agenda, or conversation, within the university. As highly visible campus leaders, the actions of USAC council members can serve as a barometer for the administration to identify issues important to the school’s students.

The intent of the resolution is sound, and the issues it raises are ones that deserve the attention of students.

No one expects a resolution from our undergraduate student government to change the world, but opening up conversations about these tough issues can lay the groundwork for a more educated and  socially active student populace.

Lumping all three issues together threatens to slow or even bring to a halt any kind of constructive criticism or conversation. There’s a difference between meaningful conversation toward a goal, and circular debate that rehashes familiar talking points.

With a single document, even if a group agrees on the ideas of labor and human rights, it may disagree on a small aspect of the environmental portion of the resolution and protest it, slowing the progress of all three points.

This isn’t productive conversation, nor is it the kind USAC should promote. Splitting the resolution into three parts would allow those student groups who have greater interest in one aspect of the document to engage in more depth and substantial conversation on an individual topic. This also means that people who are more well-versed in a subject will have a greater say in what goes into the resolutions.

The length of the resolution also creates complexities. To clearly define all three causes and their place at the UC, it would take a massive document – a text that would draw away from the immediacy of any one topic and that could dilute the message entirely.

If supporters of the resolution attempted to take the opposite course and shorten the document, they would run the risk of not thoroughly addressing the topics individually and would revert back to the original problem: vagueness.

A three-part document would prevent one resolution from drawing away attention of the others. If USAC were to vote on one of the resolutions a week, then focused debate could be had between students more invested or better versed in one issue over another.

Instead, with one document, there’s a possibility that students who have detailed concerns over, say, labor rights, could be overshadowed by students stuck on the mention of a single issue in an unrelated portion of the document.

For example, on Tuesday, a long debate emerged from a short reference to the Israeli-Palestine conflict. While discussion of the conflict is no doubt important, much was missed in discussion of other, more central, points of the resolution.

On Thursday, members of the council plan to hold a forum to continue discussion on the resolution. While it might help steer the conversation, once again, addressing this massive topic with one night of debate comes down to a game of numbers – that valid points can be drowned out by whichever party is the loudest.

Three documents would help narrow the debate and would remove much of the back-and-forth that can emerge from heated discussion over a single text.

If last Tuesday‘s meeting is any indication, there is a strong group of socially active students on this campus that want to have their opinions heard.

In order to ensure that everyone gets the chance to voice their concerns, it becomes necessary to split the resolution into three separate documents. As students who pay tuition to the university and fees to our student government, it’s in our interests to care about what the school does with its money and which business our student union interacts with.

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