On Tuesday, Nov. 3, approximately 200 students huddled together in the Peace Garden to negotiate demands with President Welty. The outraged crowd, already fueled by increasing fee hikes and fewer classes, called out their student government. “Where is ASI?” they asked, trying to make it seem as though members of ASI didn’t care and weren’t there amongst the crowd to show support.
But I have news for everyone, ASI was there and we do care. We have common goals, we just approach them in different ways.
As students, we know firsthand about fee increases, furloughs and having to register for classes that aren’t available. But as the student government, we know that pouting in a garden isn’t going to do any good. So while another group was holding ‘negotiations’ on campus that yielded little results, ASI was sending student voices straight to the heart of the problem: Sacramento.
That same Tuesday, ASI asked fellow students, “What is your degree worth?” and they told us. They told us what it meant to be the first generation, to break the female wage gap and to live the American dream. We heard them. In fact, we made a video of it to send to every state representative so they could hear too.
So today, when angry demands have fallen silent, the voices ASI asked to speak up are still heard. I encourage everyone to watch the “We Are Worth It” video on YouTube and to tell state representatives that you are worth it too.
Jessica Sweeten,
ASI President
I am sending this letter in regards to your online articles and comments left by fellow students (hopefully not staff as well). While I think a comments section is a great idea for others to voice opinions, I believe that someone should monitor it closer. An opinion is a fine line to walk and many of your posts on the site are pushing that line into hate speech. By definition, hate speech is speech that attacks or disparages a person or group of people based on their social or ethnic group, sexual orientation, social class, appearance, mental capacity and any other distinction that might be considered by some as a liability. I find it disgusting we still live in a world where individuals discriminate against each other, even on our own campus where we should be united as a student body. Furthermore, your staff does not do anything to monitor such comments. Instead of using this section as a form of sharing and commenting on articles, it has been turned into a racist mudslinging event and promotes no form of unity amongst campus. These comments neither help nor support anything that we should stand for and I ask that your staff remove these hateful posts and monitor them closer from here on out.
From a fellow student who is tired of the racist hatred still existing on campus,
Kellie Richards