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By Marcelle Richards

DAILY BRUIN SENIOR STAFF

mrichards@media.ucla.edu

Student Empowerment! and Students United for Reform and Equality both claim to be the ultimate student advocate.

They’ve even whittled their platforms down to similar frameworks – support BruinGo!, laud the diversity requirement, favor triples over study lounges. Like clockwork, each candidate condemns the taboo of raising students fees.

Yet each year, it’s the same struggle between the incumbent and the political underdog. SURE is only one of many opposition slates to try to dethrone the Student Empowerment! succession.

1. Programming for hate crimes, police brutality, “Know Your Rights” 2. Push outreach efforts, diversity requirement, more ethnic studies centers 3. Use “student experience” as education

Students First!, the mother ship slate formed and elected to power in 1995, included the student groups Samahang Pilipino, MEChA, Asian Pacific Coalition and the African Student Union. Most of these groups still rally behind Student Empowerment!

The slate formed in response to the UC Regents’ passage of SP-1 and 2, which banned affirmative action in UC admissions and hiring.

Slates usually undergo a “natural progression” in response to changing issues or changing slate dynamics, said Praxis member Mike del la Rocha, who won the presidential seat for 1999-2000.

When MEChA broke from the slate three years later, the group became Praxis, which stands for “reflection and action,” according to Paulo Freire’s book, “Pedagogy of the Oppressed.”

The end goal of Praxis was to repeal SP-1 and 2.

When four more groups joined Praxis, it renamed itself Student Empowerment!. The slate finished off Praxis’ goal to push the repeal when the regents rescinded their decision in May 2001.

Also joining the scene that spring was the SURE slate.

“It was kinda thrown together,” said David Dahle, SURE presidential candidate and the only remnant of last year’s group.

1. Increase USAC visibility with BruinWalk office hours, surveys 2. Represent “all students” including and beyond student groups 3. Fund student groups by size, not “impact” of programming.

SURE, running to displace the dominant slate in power, made a dash at elections to fill council.

The polls favored a Student Empowerment! majority and President Karren Lane, who pushed to make the council a “collective” after a drama-filled year before.

Lane’s new Student Empowerment! slate was reactionary to a divided council under former president Elizabeth Houston. That year, council votes were often divided along slate lines, and meetings were tense.

“Karren did a good job promoting collectivity, especially after Sept. 11,” said presidential candidate Bryant Tan.

With the repeal under their belts, Student Empowerment! focused on outreach and the comprehensive review.

Tan, Lane’s possible successor, said the key to the slate has always been access to education.

“All evolvements are rooted in the same ideology,” he said.

The plan next year is to take action against Proposition 209, which bans affirmative action in California, and Regent Ward Connerly’s Racial Privacy Initiative, designed to make UC more “color blind.”

Tan also wants to push transportation, housing and parking as factors of access if elected.

But not if Dahle can help it.

Though he agrees on a diversity requirement and other common issues like access to UC, Dahle does not want Student Empowerment! to be the slate to carry those plans out.

They’re too exclusive, he argues. He’s the descendant of many opposition slate hopefuls. A Viable Alternative and Students for Ethical Government are a few slate dinosaurs to run and never surface again.

With goals to dominate council next year, Dahle took the slate name and himself to put a brand new ideology behind SURE.

“The only thing similar is me,” Dahle said of his slate this year.

Last year, SURE pushed a platform to create a student senate. The move was a structural solution to something Dahle doesn’t see as a structural problem anymore. The problem is how USAC is run, he said.

It’s why he’s pushing funding reform and making a promise to represent “all students,” not just the ethnic groups that so heavily back Student Empowerment!

He realizes the election is a make-or-break situation for his slate, but regardless of what happens, the rise of opposition slates will continue in their own reactionary evolution.

“There’s always going to be an opposition slate as long as Student Empowerment! is in power,” Dahle said.