While student governments from colleges around the country have
grappled with how to address a possible war against Iraq, the
undergraduate and graduate councils at UCLA have not taken official
stances.
The Undergraduate Students Association Council is proceeding
with caution on the matter, considering the significance and
international scope of the issue, said President David Dahle.
A resolution is not expected to be brought up in the future,
said USAC External Vice President Chris Neal, who added he would
support a resolution against war.
“We need to gauge student opinion on the war,” Neal
said. “(The resolution) would have to come from student
groups so we’re not working independently of the
students.”
The Graduate Student Association is not proposing a resolution.
GSA feels its priority is to monitor issues that impact all
graduate students, and the Iraq issue is not a top priority, said
President Charles Harless.
But other schools have already taken action ““ the student
government of the University of Texas at Austin, the city where
George W. Bush served as Texas governor, passed a resolution
opposing the war on Oct. 22.
The resolution was passed after four hours of heated debate with
a margin of 20 to 17 votes, according to the university. The
student council said war would result in education budget cuts,
discrimination against Muslim and Arab students on campus and
possible draft reinstatement.
“The resolution is symbolic coming from Bush
country,” said University of Texas press aide Shannon
Clark.
The student government at Texas hoped to send a message that the
war is “immoral and illegal,” Clark said.
A similar resolution was introduced during the Gulf War in 1991
and immediately shot down, Clark said. The council’s present
denunciation of war shows how much has changed since then, she
said.
“People are more willing to talk about the issue,”
Clark said.
Eric Burns, vice president of the undergraduate student body at
the University of Michigan, said the school does not take official
stances on political issues. Nevertheless, he said students are
concerned about the subject.
“The student body is fairly evenly split,” Burns
said.
The Associated Students of UC Berkeley wrote a bill earlier this
quarter stating, “the Bush Administration has failed to
provide adequate justification to wage war on Iraq.”
According to the bill, ASUC said most students strongly supported
peace, and it was the student government’s responsibility to
represent their views.
Unlike Berkeley, most UC campuses have yet to take an official
stance.
The scope of the issue is too big, said Chia-Saun Lai,
undergraduate student government president at UC Davis.
The council felt it couldn’t accurately speak for all
24,000 undergraduate students at UCD, Lai said.
A bill calling for the support of using force went through
UCD’s student senate three weeks ago and didn’t pass.
The senate felt it did not have enough information to make a
decision, he said.
However, Lai felt international issues are relevant on
campus.
“Students do have a say in international affairs, just
look at Vietnam,” Lai said. “We just need to be more
educated.”
The student council at UC Riverside has not tackled the issue
yet, said council president Nadine Sayegh.
“We’ve just been too busy right now with the
elections and propositions that we had to take stances on,”
Sayegh said.
The same sentiment was shared at the UC campuses in San Diego
and Santa Barbara.
“We haven’t taken an official stance on Iraq,”
said UCSD student government press aide Navneet Grewal. The council
was busy dealing with more relevant issues, Grewal said. UCSB
Internal Vice President Sumbo Bamitboye said that the university
had been presently occupied by other issues.
“Unofficially,” Bamitboye said, “we have been
against the idea of war.”
With reports from Dorothy Augustyniak and Robert Salonga, Daily
Bruin Senior Staff.