Will of students behind Diversity Initiative finds way to ballot

A group of more than 60 students filled Kerckhoff 417 at an undergraduate student government meeting earlier this month. They packed the room and spilled out into the hallway, awaiting the outcome of a council vote on the Bruin Diversity Referendum, a proposal for a fee increase many had been working on for months. It didn’t pass.

But the students were able to add it to the ballot as an initiative eight days later.

The Bruin Diversity Initiative proposes a $9.93 increase to student fees every quarter to provide funding for various student groups including the Campus Retention Committee, the Student Initiated Access Committee, the American Indian Student Association, the Vietnamese Student Union, the Community Programs Office and the Pacific Islands’ Student Association.

The initiative had been a work in progress for many months.

The students, including Brittany Bolden, the retention coordinator for the Afrikan Student Union and vice chair of the Campus Retention Committee, and Belem Lamas, the chair of the UCLA Student Risk Education Committee, decided to come up with a fee increase proposal after finding out that a number of student groups wanted more funding for their programs.

For instance, the initiative would increase funding for cultural and spiritual organizations to help them organize cultural events throughout the year.

Additionally, it would allocate funding for academic conferences. Different USAC offices already have a budget for advocacy and leadership conferences, though the initiative states many of these students often have to pay out of their pocket to attend.

The LGBT Center’s $13,000 budget is currently insufficient to support increasing student demand, according to the initiative’s text. Some of the money raised through the initiative would help the center improve its programming.

A group of students met multiple times during fall quarter to discuss potential problems they would like to address.

Several other students began to share a common interest, and by the last week of winter quarter about 12 students decided to stay on campus during spring break and write the referendum proposal, said Lamas, a fourth-year political science student.

The students behind the initiative also reached out to several USAC officers and administrators for advice and feedback about their proposed referendum, said Bolden, a fourth-year sociology student, and former Daily Bruin video contributor.

But USAC President David Bocarsly said the students submitted the proposal to the council after the deadline to add items to the agenda. According to USAC bylaws, everything must be placed on the agenda three school days prior to the meeting the agenda is for. Bocarsly, however, said he wanted to give the students a fair shot, so USAC voted to override the bylaw so the council could consider the proposal.

The limited time was a common concern that several council members brought up at the meeting before the proposal was voted down.

But the students who drafted the referendum did not take no for an answer.

“It was almost like (USAC) dared us to do something about it, and personally I don’t back away from a challenge,” Bolden said.

Bolden and a group of students compiled enough student signatures to add it instead as an initiative to the spring ballot.

After USAC voted down the referendum proposal, the students mobilized to turn it into an initiative and garnered enough signatures to put it on the ballot.

During the three days after the meeting, backers of the initiative took to classrooms, Facebook and Bruin Walk to gather the about 2,700 signatures they needed.

By April 10 – the deadline for turning in the petition to the USAC Election Board – the students surpassed their goal by more than 2,300 signatures.

“When you had so many students saying they wanted this, it helped keep us accountable and kept us motivated to keep working to get the referendum on the (spring) ballot,” Lamas said.

Students will be able to vote on the initiative during USAC elections on MyUCLA from May 6-9.