The Undergraduate Students Association Council External Vice President’s office has played a pivotal role in student advocacy and activism on this campus for decades. UCLA has been at the forefront of fighting for affordable education, advocating to dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline and providing students with a space to lobby for issues they are passionate about.
Unfortunately, this past year did not reflect the usual trailblazing work we are accustomed to from the EVP office. While in the past the EVP office worked closely with our statewide and national student advocacy partners, this year’s EVP turned his back on those allies and opted for a “go-it-alone” approach that reduced UCLA’s role and voice in Sacramento and Washington, D.C. This happened in two main ways.
First, over the summer, when students were not on campus and could not give much input, the EVP office cut UCLA’s ties to the United States Student Association, the national umbrella group that helps campuses advocate for students at the national level. Over the course of the year, the EVP deprioritized UCLA’s role in the University of California’s statewide advocacy coalition, the UC Student Association.
Second, the EVP replaced working through our statewide and national coalitions with a self-serve model of lobbying, using funds to allow individual students or groups to lobby for policies they wanted. With a low rate of usage and few concrete gains to show for it, it is hard to see how this approach was more beneficial than working with our coalition partners. In fact, the EVP’s actions were often said to be detrimental to the UC system. For example, when the EVP took his own path on enrollment debates, statewide leaders said he undermined their work and hurt the UC student body’s relationship with its partners and allies across the state. This divisiveness reduced, rather than enhanced, our ability to effectively change policies in Sacramento.
What is clear from these experiences is that this election is about two different visions of the EVP office. One vision is to continue down this path, turning our backs on our statewide and national allies, and assuming that UCLA is stronger alone than in coalition with other campuses. The other vision, held by Waves of Change candidate Ria Jain, is to return to the model of statewide and national advocacy that has led to past victories such as the tuition freeze won by students in 2015.
Jain will restore our relationships with the rest of the UC campuses and with our advocacy partners like the UCSA. Her vision is to use the EVP office to fight for progressive change in Sacramento and Washington, D.C. This is the approach that has worked so successfully for UCLA in years past, and is the vision endorsed by both the Daily Bruin Editorial Board and Bruin Democrats. With Jain in office, the EVP office will once again be the office that fights for student interests.
And it is not just that Jain has the right vision for the EVP office, she is also highly qualified to lead the office, based on her work across the state and at UCLA.
In her three years in the EVP office, she has collaborated with leaders from various UC campuses on issues surrounding mental health, sexual assault prevention, fighting tuition increases and holding the administration accountable. Even more impressive is the work she has done for the All of Us campaign. The campaign has connected UCLA students to key administrators working in Counseling and Psychological Services, the Peer Resilience Network and the UCLA Grand Depression Challenge, thus increasing the impact students can have on campus-wide mental health advocacy.
Through her work at UCSA, she was able to institute her mental health advocacy work on a UC-wide level by helping coordinate the “How Are You” campaign: an initiative to raise awareness about mental health and advocate for more accessible student mental health services. This was not a hard feat for her considering the positive relationships she has built with other UC EVPs and stakeholders.
Closer to home, Jain has also served as the external vice president of Indus, building strong connections with other South Asian organizations. She is also a member of United Students Against Sweatshops and has rallied all year for workers’ rights, recognizing the role workers play in the UC system and how students must take a stand to fight for them.
When Bernie Sanders says in his speeches that we should be investing in graduation, not incarceration, it shows how far-reaching EVP work like the IGNITE campaign, which coined that phrase, really can be. But the office can only be that powerful when it is working in coalition with the rest of the UC, rather than butting heads with it. I am confident that with a student advocate like Ria Jain as our next EVP, we can return the office to good standing and continue using the EVP office to advocate for the UCLA community’s interests at the state and national level.
Chhabra is a third-year political science student and was a staff member in the External Vice President’s office during the 2014-2015 academic year. She is currently president of Indus, a staff member for the All of Us campaign and a campaign manager for the Waves of Change slate.