Editorial: ASUCLA student reps’ rhetoric is counterproductive

The original version of this article contained an error and has been changed. See the bottom of the article for additional information.

What student officials say matters. When they are charged with representing the interests of thousands of students to a vital campus body, their words matter that much more.

Lamentably, it’s a notion that has escaped some student representatives on the Associated Students UCLA Board of Directors.

On Friday, several members of the board made alarming remarks regarding what they perceived their hand should be in the future of UCLA Student Media. Specifically, their comments centered on a recent financial agreement struck between ASUCLA and the UCLA Communications Board, which oversees the Daily Bruin, BruinLife Yearbook, UCLA Radio and seven campus newsmagazines.

In a discussion concerning the agreement, several ASUCLA board members said they thought the agreement “had no teeth.” Originally, the agreement contained a clause that would have allowed the ASUCLA Board of Directors to stack the Communications Board if certain obligations were not met, effectively jeopardizing the independence of the Daily Bruin and its sister publications.

In February, dozens of members of The Bruin’s staff attended the Board of Directors’ meeting to voice their concerns over the consideration of any agreement that could pose a threat to editorial independence.

Voicing surprise at the turnout and having heard the concerns of numerous members of Student Media, the ASUCLA board members moved to amend the agreement and repeatedly assured the room that they fully supported and respected the importance and independence of Student Media.

Two months later, the tone struck by several student members on the board is dramatically different.

Graduate representative Robert Kurtzman said to his fellow board members on Friday that they “should have been able to stack the (Communications) Board like (they) originally wanted to.”

Adam Swart, an undergraduate representative, agreed.

Swart added jokingly that he didn’t think the Communications Board wanted to engage with him because he presents “too many ideas,” and concluded, “I think we need to stack the board.”

Such bold-faced advocacy by student representatives for the takeover of UCLA Student Media is at once disheartening and alarming, laying out in plain sight a refusal to truly back students’ best interests.

Student representatives on the ASUCLA Board of Directors receive free tuition and must only pass an undergraduate or graduate student government appointment process to be seated in their positions. That’s a sweet deal, but it doesn’t give representatives the right to sit back and spew damaging and aggressive rhetoric about some of UCLA’s most decorated and highly regarded student institutions.

One of just a handful of board members to vocally disagree was Karleen Giannitrapani, a graduate student representative on ASUCLA’s board who pointed to the need to communicate with the Communications Board and be conscious of the tone of the conversation.

Giannitrapani is right. ASUCLA and Student Media are closely connected, and the two entities inevitably must work together, understanding at once the importance of meeting financial obligations but also weighing industry-wide factors and the heavy toll that Student Media has already taken upon its shoulders to stay afloat through the recession.

UCLA Student Media is a department made up of more than 600 students that serves a campus of tens of thousands. ASUCLA pledges a mission of serving students, and perpetuating a hostile relationship with an integral student organization won’t do anything to help mend the department’s financial struggles.

Swart and Kurtzman should be among the first on the board to recognize the importance of an independent and healthy student press. Friday’s showing did not impress.

To the ASUCLA Board of Directors: Your words matter. Student Media matters. It should not take the constant presence of stakeholders at the ASUCLA board’s monthly meetings for the board to hear an accurate account of students’ interests.

But until that day comes, we’ll be there – and we’re not going away.

Correction: Graduate representative David Zeke did not openly agree with Kurtzman’s statement about stacking the Communications Board at Friday’s meeting.