Julia McCarthy: EVP’s efforts lobbying against Safe Campus Act lack student involvement

How many UCLA students does it take to change a lightbulb? About the same number of students that the Undergraduate Students Association Council external vice president spoke with before taking a lobbying trip to Washington, D.C., this past week.

Hint: It’s not that many.

The point of the trip was to lobby against the Safe Campus Act. The legislation, currently moving through the House of Representatives, would include provisions that require sexual assault survivors to report their assaults to the police before involving the university. It would also allow universities to use their own standard of proof when determining who is responsible in cases involving sexual assault.

So the motivation behind going to Washington, D.C., was a good one; this is a bad bill. However, what’s not encouraging is that it seems as if EVP Zach Helder talked to as few people as possible before embarking on the trip. In fact, according to him, he only talked to one student organization: the Bruin Consent Coalition.

In an interview, when asked why few students seemed to know about what the EVP office was doing in Washington, D.C., Helder said, “A lot of students don’t really know what’s going on in Washington or the state capitol.” He continued, “You know there’s a lot of stuff that the (EVP) office has to do to protect students from things they don’t even know about.”

But I beg to differ with Helder’s statement. His mind-set underestimates the students on this campus and belittles their ability to make contributions to important policy conversations. The EVP office must take steps to better incorporate the student body into its work and advocacy. An easy remedy would be the establishment of town hall-like meetings and public forums held by the EVP staff to hear from students before lobbying for an issue.

Public forums will allow EVP staff and student groups utilizing the Bruin Defenders program, a recent EVP initiative providing students and student groups with funding to lobby for issues they care about, to share their advocacy efforts with the rest of the student body. Bringing attention to these lobbying efforts will not only be beneficial to the general student body, but also the groups and staff members working on the issues; if a student attends a public forum discussing a lobbying trip being planned by the Bruin Defenders and is passionate about the topic, that individual can serve as a resource to those advocating for the issue.

Not only that, but forums and town halls will bring together students who want to champion specific issues, providing them with a network of resources, including other students who can be involved in future lobbying efforts.

To be sure, speaking with members of Bruin Consent Coalition is never a bad thing; the organization is extremely educated and aware of issues relating to college sexual assault. But only speaking to one campus club at a school with many thousands of students is not only irresponsible, it is irrational.

There is simply no way the EVP office can claim to be lobbying for the student body when actively failing to engage and speak with that population.

Furthermore, for an issue as critical as the topic of campus sexual assault, one that is very personal and important for so many UCLA students, it is all the more important for students to have the ability to share their experiences.

While the Bruin Defenders program is a step in the right direction in addressing this gap between the student body and the EVP office, only a limited number of students will be able to take advantage of these resources.

For the many thousands of students who will not participate in the Bruin Defenders program, there needs to be a space where they care share their thoughts and opinions on policy issues being advocated for by the EVP office, which is where the creation of public forums and town hall-like meetings come into play. Students deserve a voice in the discussions about what their student fees are supporting, and which topics their representatives are advocating for or against.

It would be silly, even arrogant, to think this work can be done without the input and help of actual students themselves.

When asked how he plans to increase student voice and representation in his efforts in the future, Helder said that his office will be reaching out to students who have “relevant experience” on issues his office is advocating for. But he made clear that an avenue for doing that wouldn’t come from public forums.

“Maybe it hasn’t been well conveyed just how often we lobby on issues, but we do it very often and having a public forum on each issue would mean having a public forum every day, that’s not a very efficient way to gather information,” Helder said.

But some of those students with “relevant experience” like the idea of public forums. Chrissy Keenan, co-director of Bruin Consent Coalition and Helder’s main point of contact for the Safe Campus Act, said she believed a public forum or town hall event to incorporate many student voices would be an amazing idea, one which had been used by her organization last year during Consent Week.

The fact that only a handful of students were consulted for the EVP’s most recent lobbying trip sets a dangerous precedent for the year. What happens when an issue comes to the table that is not as clear-cut as the Safe Campus Act in terms of knowing which side is right?

Requesting a forum each time a Bruin Defenders application is approved does not seem like too much to ask; transparency needs to be a critical component of the EVP office.

So in the future I’d much rather have thousands of students being involved in the changing of this metaphorical lightbulb, working to accomplish progress together, than a small minority of students. As they say, many hands make light work.