UC seeks student input on sexual harassment policies

The UC Office of the President put out a press release on Nov. 14 announcing the creation of an “inaugural student advisory board” which will provide “input on UC sexual harassment and sexual violence issues.”

The board will be made up of nine undergraduate students and eight graduate students, one from each undergraduate UC campus. Board members will serve for 18-month terms beginning in January of 2018.

According to the press release from UCOP, the student board members will be expected to “serve as liaisons to students on their campuses and help advise the university’s system-wide Title IX office on its ongoing prevention and response efforts.”

Kathleen Salvaty, the systemwide Title IX Officer, stated her hopes for the input provided by the Student Advisory Board in UCOP’s press release.

“This board will play a crucial role by providing a much-needed student perspective,” Salvaty said. “I look forward to hearing students’ concerns and ideas, and leveraging their input so we can further improve university policies.”

Rebecca Nelson, the chair of the ASUCD Gender and Sexuality Commission, expressed her enthusiasm and support for the establishment of the Advisory Board.

“This was something that I was a huge proponent of,” Nelson said. “I think it’s really important, given that normally students don’t have access to that information or access to having […] their own voice in regards to how hate crimes or hate violence are handled, or even sexual assault.”

According to Nelson, the majority of information about hate crimes and sexual harassment situations is limited to a few select individuals and is closed off from students.

“A lot of hate crimes and sexual violence reports are completely confidential and sealed from students for the most part, so the only people who see those are the director of Title IX and the directors of the Harassment and Discrimination Assistance and Prevention Program,” Nelson said.

Nelson also discussed the impact this systemwide change may have on UC Davis, potentially leading to increased transparency in university processes when dealing with situations regarding sexual harassment and assault.

“We have tried, and so has the Sexual Assault Advocacy Committee, […] to ask for a task force that interacts with Title IX so students can get an idea of what’s happening on campus, [including] how frats are being held accountable,” Nelson said. “Title IX said no due to federal law and confidentiality. I don’t think that’s something that should bar students from being involved in issues that concern us and are being swept under the rug. I don’t think that administration has appropriately handled a lot of these cases and I think they keep the university’s public image in mind more, or [tend to] protect abusers more than hold them accountable.”

The application for the Title IX Student Advisory Board has been extended until Friday, Dec. 8. Applicants chosen for a seat on the board will be notified the first week of January.

Written by: Priyanka Shreedar — campus@theaggie.org

Muslim Student Association launches #FiercelyMuslim campaign

On the afternoon of Dec. 7, the Muslim Student Association launched its #FiercelyMuslim Campaign with a public rally. The event description on Facebook stated that the campaign is “a resolution to highlight and empower Muslim students to be proud and unapologetic in their faith.”

The rally began at the Student Community Center at 2 p.m.; the group of about 60 walked through campus and ended in front of the Memorial Union. The group chanted “Fearless we must live fiercely Muslim,” “Free, free Palestine” and “Two incidents, too much” — as well as other statements — throughout the rally.

At the MU, members of the MSA board and other students took part in an adhan, a call to prayer, and a communal prayer.

The campaign came in response to the second of two incidents against Muslim students on campus. According to a statement released by the MSA, the first incident took place on Oct. 26 when a female Muslim student was “forcibly pulled off her bike by an unknown assailant while riding at the Arboretum; [….] she managed to escape unhurt.” The second incident took place on Nov. 29 in Haring Hall with a second female Muslim individual.

“She saw a man following her with a knife — she managed to escape and report the incident to the police,” the statement said. “The operator on call repeatedly asked her if it was instead a marijuana pipe; it took the pressure of the Muslim Student Association to get the police to send out a campus wide crime report acknowledging the incident — three hours afterwards.”

MSA’s outreach coordinator Hasna El-Nounou, a second-year community and regional development major, described the association’s motivation to organize the rally.

“I think that the intended effect we were hoping to get was to really strengthen the pride and [address the] apologeticness of being Muslim within our own community and to stand in front of everyone on campus, Muslim or non-Muslim, and show them that we are fiercely Muslim, we are fearlessly Muslim, we are unapologetically Muslim,” El-Nounou said.

El-Nounou also described the student response as the rally marched through the campus.

“I felt that a lot of students came to join us or stopped to listen,” El-Nounou said. “A lot of people who didn’t know what was going on before were asking questions and they started to join us, so I feel like [a large] aspect was [that] a lot of people didn’t know about what was going on and that’s half the crime right there.”

MSA’s President Adnan Perwez, a third-year political science and history double major, cited the issue with Safe Rides, a service available to UC Davis students who prefer an alternative to walking alone or in a small group at night.

“Actually implement safety measures on campus,” Perwez said. “For example, one of the biggest issues [is] Safe Rides. [Safe Rides] is supposed to be something that is supposed to protect the student community but it’s constantly failed to do so — […] that has been something that has been asked by the undergraduate advisory to the chancellor [and] it’s been asked by the Black Under Attack movements that happened a few years back. We, as a community, have to rely on organizing our own Safe Rides and walking people back just to make sure Muslim students, especially sisters, are safe.”

Perwez elaborated further on the lack of administrational backing and action in response to these incidents.

“[The administration could] be more cognizant of the very real dangers that all our students face on campus and being much more serious about that,” Perwez said. “When people do report [an incident], taking it very seriously and taking it as your primary responsibility as an administration who is here to protect the lives of students. Those were the only two incidents that were reported to us as the MSA board, but there are many, many other incidents that happened every day against Muslims on campus that [the administration] continually ignore. When you remain neutral in those situations, you’re actually helping the oppression and you’re helping further the atmosphere of hate.”

Perwez discussed the impact he hopes the rally and the #FiercelyMuslim movement will have on Davis.

“This rally is really not an end, it’s the beginning of getting our Muslim student community, which are hundreds strong, actually mobilized and ready to be empowered and [refusing] to be victims of a narrative that has not just been spawned on a local level, but it’s being trickled down from a national level,” Perwez said. “You have the President who, last week, retweeted videos that did nothing more than incite open violence against Muslims. When that happens on a national level, you see it trickle down and happening everywhere — including Davis.”

Written By: Priyanka Shreedar — campus@theaggie.org

Jimin Kim discussed Korean history, U.S.-Korean diplomacy, North Korean provocations

On Dec. 6, Jimin Kim, the deputy consul to the Republic of Korea in San Francisco, gave a presentation to students in the Multipurpose Room of the SCC. Kim’s goal was to educate attendees about Korean culture, discuss the Korean alliance with the United States and address recent tensions with North Korean nuclear testing.

“Our foremost mission is to protect our citizens who travel here, who study here and who come here,” Kim said. “Also, [our mission is] to promote the Korea-U.S. alliance relationship through exchanges, through public diplomacy where we come out and introduce our policies and also interexchange between the two countries on a grassroots level.”

Soo Kyeom Lee, the event’s host and a fourth-year mathematics major, introduced Kim and explained the motivation to accept Kim’s offer to visit UC Davis.

“This event began with a simple ‘yes,’” Lee said. “As soon as I received a call from the consulate general, I knew this was an opportunity that could not be missed. One of the remarkable things at UC Davis is that student involvement is valued. Though student involvement is important, I felt that we lacked an event that truly educated students about Korea and furthermore the relationship between Korea and the U.S.”

After Lee’s introduction, Professor Fadi Fathallah, the associate vice provost for global education and services at UC Davis Global Affairs, provided background information about the relationship between Korea and UC Davis, specifically.

“If you look at just the number of international students from Korea at Davis, we have over 300 — […] that’s almost 5 percent of all the international students,” Fathallah said. “We have 120 to 130 international scholars, visiting professors, visiting undergraduate students [and] visiting graduate students. In the past 10 years, we had almost 2,000 publications with Korean scholars — you see the depth of the record with Korean scholars at the cultural level and the academic level.”

Kim then began a 40-minute presentation, which included a PowerPoint presentation and a series of short videos. He started by discussing Korea’s 5,000-year history. Kim said that the U.S. alliance with the Republic of Korea (ROK) began in 1883. Following the end of WWII in 1945, Korea was separated into the communist North and the democratic South. The Korean War began in 1950, but the peninsula continues to be divided at the 38th parallel. Kim explained that, even after the devastation of the Korean War, which ended in 1953, South Korea has become “one of the most vibrant democracies and advanced economies in the world today.”

Kim then talked about the current state of the Korea-U.S. alliance and the joint effort to address North Korean nuclear threats.

“President Donald Trump recently visited Korea on an official visit,” Kim said. “[Moon Jae-in and President Trump] had very candid discussions about the steadfastness of the ROK-U.S. alliance. Moreover, they agreed to work toward resolving the North Korean nuclear issue in a very peaceful manner. Both leaders reaffirmed the principle that we must maintain a strong stance toward North Korean threats based on an overwhelming superiority power. They also reaffirmed the current strategy, which is to maximize the pressure and sanctions on North Korea until it gives up its nuclear weapons and comes to the table for dialogue on its own.”

In terms of South Korea’s individual efforts to manage North Korean threats, Kim said that his government is relying on continued sanctions that will eventually force North Korea to open a discussion with outside nations. He also said that South Korea wants to promote peace with North Korea, specifically with regard to the upcoming Olympics, and avoid another war on the peninsula.

“My government is also exerting great efforts to make the upcoming PyeongChang Winter Olympic games in February 2018 […] games of peace, which will ease the tensions on the Korean peninsula and create a favorable environment for inter-Korean dialogue, exchange and cooperation,” Kim said.

Kim then used a satellite image of the Korean peninsula at night to show the stark contrast between the North and the South. In the image, the southern area was vibrantly lit, while the northern area was completely dark, save for a small dot of light in the North Korean capital of Pyongyang.

Human rights issues in North Korea were also brought up, and Kim gave a recent example to highlight the struggles of North Korean citizens.

“Recently, a North Korean defected across the joint security area,” Kim said. “He had six bullets shot at him by the North Korean military, which is very illegal — according to the armistice agreement you are not supposed to shoot across the border. We had to take him quickly to the hospital for a surgery, and in the surgery they found twenty or so parasites; it shows the current dire situation of the North Korean people living.”

North Korea has conducted six nuclear tests since 2003, when it withdrew from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. It is the only nation that is no longer part of the agreement and is also the only nation to have conducted nuclear tests in the 21st century. Since 2011, when Kim Jong-un took power, there have been a total of 61 ballistic missile launches.

“North Korea argues that its possession of nuclear weapons is a righteous self-defense measure in order to defend its sovereignty against the U.S.’ hostile policy and nuclear threats,” Kim said. “It seems they are convinced that only nuclear weapons can provide the regime’s survival, enabling them to avoid the fate of other dictators like Gaddafi and Saddam Hussein.”

Kim said that since the most recent nuclear test on Sept. 3, 2017, a new resolution was passed by the United Nations Security Council to impose increasingly restrictive sanctions on North Korea. Sanctions include reducing 30 percent of the oil provided to North Korea, banning all North Korean textile exports, preventing overseas workers from earning wages that finance the regime and banning all joint ventures with North Korea to cut off foreign investment, technology transfer and other economic cooperation.

Kim believes that sanctions like these, combined with the joint power of outside nations, will help to ease nuclear tensions with North Korea.

“The close coordination between the Republic of Korea and the United States and the overwhelming superiority power that stems from the Korea-United States alliance will eventually make North Korea seize its reckless provocations and make North Korea come out to the dialogue for de-nuclearizaton,” Kim said.

Written by: Olivia Rockeman — campus@theaggie.org