Student Action: A legacy of betrayal?

The dishonerable record of our student leaders

By Christopher Page
From the November 2006 Print Edition

If you thought the most brazen con artists worked the sidewalks of Telegraph Avenue, you would be wrong. They actually inhabit the senate chambers on the second floor of Eshleman Hall.

The menace of the Berkeley campus is the political machine known as Student Action. This student political party was founded with the best of intentions, but in recent years it has collapsed into a political apparatus that could rival Tammany Hall with its injustice.

The outrage of last month was the submission of a bill that would "reimburse" ASUC President and Student Action member Oren Gabriel $22,679 for legal fees Student Action incurred over the summer. The first question you would rightly ask is, Why should money that could go to student groups be directed to this individual? Gabriel’s answer to the Daily Californian was: "The Judicial Council was violating the ASUC bylaws and their own rules of procedure so in order to make sure that the will of the students was followed, it was necessary to hire legal counsel." I find it interesting that Gabriel thought he was following the will of the students by preferring professional lawyers over the Judicial Council, which is composed of students.

Compare the will-of-students comment above to this now-classic lie of Oren Gabriel from his open letter to students: "The outside counsel that was hired over the summer proved instrumental in convincing the Judicial Council to accept our appeal and clearly articulated the multiple reasons why the Judicial Council decision was both procedurally and substantively incorrect." First, it was Student Action that backed out of the appeal process not the Judicial Council. It was only after Gabriel’s case was thrown out of court by an Alameda County Superior Court judge that Student Action suddenly became interested in participating in the appeal process. Second, if Gabriel had bothered to read the decision, he would have known that the numerous arguments his side presented were almost entirely rejected.

Born from turmoil

According to Student Action’s Web site, "the Student Action student organization was founded in 1995 by a group of students who were outraged by the incompetence of several ASUC leaders." The current leaders must be nostalgic for the old days, as they have brought back incompetence.

Another concern of the thousands of students who signed petitions by the group that became Student Action was funding for student groups. Students wanted a bigger piece of the funding pie to go to student groups. As of this year’s budget, around $513,000 is going to student groups or publications. In contrast, $560,000 is going to government operations or ASUC-instituted programs. The $415,000 allocation to the Graduate Assembly is another story for another time.

Onto the Internet

While this is speculation, it can be proved as conclusively as Suken Vakil’s knowledge of chalk can be. That is the hacking into and willful vandalism of Igor Tregub’s Facebook account. Someone broke into the online system and defriended all 1,153 of Tregub’s friends and tried to cancel the ACCESS events for that week. ACCESS is the student group founded by Tregub that lobbies the Berkeley City Council. If Student Action is behind the computer hacking, it would not be the first time that it has descended to such a low tactic. Student Action senators have been known to send messages through Facebook spreading lies about opposition candidates. When the Facebook group "Oren Gabriel Should Pay For His Own Legal Fees" appeared, at least one current Student Action senator sent lies in messages to members of the group. The senator hoped his misinformation about the events of the summer would win over supporters.

The pork of power

The five ASUC executives get a stipend of $4,000 a year. The chiefs of staff of each executive office get $1,500 in payment. The directors of each division of each office, sometimes up to ten divisions in an office, get $250 each. The ASUC also has a huge number of interns. While the average executive office can have around 50 interns, last year’s Executive Vice Presidential office had a staff of 130 people.

The office budgets are politically motivated. The budget of the nonpartisan Student Advocate Office is the lowest of any executive office. Even though the student advocate handles student disputes with the university, a valuable service that helps many students, its budget lags behind.

Then there are the items that don’t get too much attention in the budget. Do you have any idea what happens at the Executive Officer Training Program? I don’t know where this $1,500 goes, but it teaches no one how to write a correct executive order. The positions of Webmaster and attorney general are important, but considering that the Web site is sorely out of date and the attorney general is not stopping people from breaking the constitution, the stipends of $1,000 each should be withheld.

Last word from Gabriel

To his credit, there is one campaign promise Oren Gabriel has fulfilled. In his campaign last year, Gabriel said, "As students at the leading public university in the world, we deserve entertainment to match our academic excellence." From Student Action’s behavior in the last few months, we have received entertainment of a high order. Now the farce has gone on long enough. I want my government back.

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