Kevin Samy of Forbes’ 2016 “30 under 30” list brings Dog Whistle event to UC Davis

Kevin Samy, former speechwriter to the Obama Administration Secretary of Defense, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Pentagon and special assistant to the Secretary of Energy, spoke at UC Davis on Jan. 13 as part of his Dog Whistle event. According to Samy, this event was hosted by the Davis College Democrats (DCD) as an alternative to Milo Yiannopoulos’ UC Davis stop on his “Dangerous Faggot” Tour on the same day.

Yiannopoulos, an editor for Breitbart News and a controversial “alt-right” figure, planned to speak at a UC Davis event that was cancelled due to a large protest.

UC Davis was Samy’s first official stop on his Dog Whistle Tour, sparked by a response to a Yiannopoulos event at Miami University.

“I thought, ‘Maybe I’ll stop in Ohio and offer another perspective’,” Samy said. “We don’t have the resources of internet troll royalty that Milo does — in three days, we packed a room full of hundreds of students.”

According to the Dog Whistle Project’s Facebook and website, Samy and partner Chris Roessner’s mission is to “decode the politics of hate and reaffirm our American identity, and shine a light on the algorithm of the kinds of messages and arguments they’re making that frankly appeal to the extreme fringe.”

Samy said that he and Roessner, who could not attend the UC Davis event, began noticing a trend in politics since the recent presidential election — dog whistle messages. Samy explained dog whistle politics as coded appeals or euphemisms. One example he gave was how supporting “family values” can be associated with anti-gay rhetoric.

“We are not an America that says, ‘Since you’re Muslim, we’re going to put an asterisk by your name,’” Samy said. “I see the way people talk about immigrants from Pakistan and it riles you up.”

Samy believes that America needs to become more cognizant of dog whistle politics in order to prevent it.

“There is a lack of depth of understanding of the mechanism by which this kind of affected coded strategy [dog whistling] works that is inherently deceitful,” Samy said. “I had conversations with people of color, and they wanted people to explain ‘What do we do now?’”

Samy also followed Yiannopoulos to the next leg of the “Dangerous Faggot” tour on Jan. 20 at the University of Washington.

In Samy’s opinion, Yiannopoulos was able to play the victim card after his cancelled UC Davis event.

“First, [Yiannopoulos’] message upon return [to the next day’s protest] was predictable and potent, rabble rousing around one-liners we can all agree with, such as ‘they care about diversity, but not diversity of opinion,’” Samy said. “Free speech can be used to tear down or build up. As a guy who goes around saying ‘faggot’ and bad-mouthing entire groups of people, Milo embodies the former.”

Christian Monsees, DCD president and a third-year political science major, wanted to support Samy’s message and provide an alternative to Yiannopoulos’ event.

“We are thrilled to have Kevin Samy in light of the [Yiannopoulos] event; he believes, as we do, in the dangers of the alt-right and how it’s damaging to our political system,” Monsees said. “He is here to talk about implicit bigotry and how politicians can use dog whistle politics to inspire hatred and bigotry that some people have in order to gain support. We believe that while it is absolutely important to enforce freedom of speech, that does not mean that you should invite just anyone onto a campus.”

Samy described Yiannopoulos as a “provocateur” and “super-villain,” monikers that Yiannopoulos has used to describe himself as well.

“Yiannopoulos is like a toddler in a Darth Vader costume,” Samy said.

For Monsees, Yiannopoulos was not an appropriate guest for the UC Davis community.

“It is one thing to have the right to free speech, but it is another thing to deserve to be heard,” Monsees said.

However, Samy said that he still upholds Yiannopoulos’ right to free speech.

“His action of espousing [his ideas] is an artifact of a functioning, open, free republic,” Samy said. “His existence is actually proof that our nation built on an ideal is working.”

Written by: Aaron Liss — campus@theaggie.org

ASUCD held its first senate meeting of Winter Quarter on Thursday, Jan. 1. ASUCD Vice President Abhay Sandhu called the meeting to order at 6:10 p.m. Senator Sam Park was absent and Senator Ricardo Martinez arrived late.

Senator Irveen Grewal was elected senate president pro-tempore. The president pro-tempore is the official representative of the ASUCD Senate and is elected each quarter.

Public discussion began with an appeal for Housing Day volunteers by Juliana Luna, director of the Housing Advising for Undergraduate Students unit. Environmental Policy and Planning Commission chair Sarah Fisher presented a proposal concerning the environmental impact of houseboats and was directed to a member of ASUCD administration.

Kevin Blue, the UC Davis athletics director introduced Dan Hawkins, the new head football coach. Hawkins gave a short speech about the campus, his experiences coaching football around the world and his desire to make a difference through football. He stressed the importance of the creativity and dedication in football and ensuring that players focus on both sports and academic excellence. The floor then opened to the senators to question Hawkins.

Internal Affairs Commission chair Nick Flores asked what football can do to engage students and increase school spirit. Hawkins proposed ideas of contacting Greek life, having camps or clinics or following a past strategy of marching football players through the campus and residential areas.

Gender and Sexuality Commission chair Alison Tam questioned how football players were educated on consent, sexual harassment and cultural competency. Hawkins responded that players were required to undergo a program when they come to campus and would be required to repeat it once they began football season. Hawkins concluded by stating that football players’ academic progress rate was very high and that football staff was very strict about keeping players on a path to academic success.

Next, senators were assigned to ASUCD committees and units. Senators nominated themselves or other senators for open positions, and roll call votes were held if there were more nominated senators than positions available.

Following presentations and assignments, legislation was presided over. Senate Bill #10, introduced by Joshua Dalavai, concerns giving marketing money to the Aggie Reuse Store. The bill was tabled.

SB #15, introduced by Internal Affairs Commissioner Jacob Engel, concerned a $1,000 ASUCD volunteer award. Senator Julie Jung wanted the bill to be an incentive to volunteer and a way to recognize volunteers of ASUCD without whom many ASUCD operations would not be able to function efficiently. SB #20, also authored by Engel, concerned awarding temporary/trial scholarships that do not fall under the ASUCD Bylaws.

After some corrections, the bills moved into public discussion. Controller Joe DeAngelo expressed concerns over both bills because senators have not been identified to sit on the committee and there was no outline to what method would be used to award money. There was concern over taking money from senate reserves that could be given to staff or misused. Additionally, certain committees and units that were not as active and had fewer volunteers were less likely to be recognized. After discussion by the senators, the bills were called into question by Senators Sofia Molodanof and Shaitaj Dhaliwal, respectively. SB #15 and SB #20 both failed with a vote of 0-11-1, with abstentions by Park.

SB #30, authored by Flores, asks to remove section 1410 of the ASUCD Bylaws titled: My Student Government Channel, as it was not in use. Senator Irveen Grewal moved to call SB #30 into question and the bill was passed 11-0-1, with an abstention by Park.

New legislation was introduced and will be sent to committees in the following weeks. There are bills to allocate $650 to the Aggie Public Arts Committee for its piano project, recognize the longstanding symbiotic relationship between ASUCD and the Student Alumni Association, change staff pay from hourly salaries to stipends for The California Aggie’s 2017 budget and incorporate UndocuALLY and Sexual Assault Bystander Intervention training into the ASUCD Senate’s mandated trainings.

After ex-officio reports and elected officer reports, the meeting adjourned at 7:47 p.m.
Written by: Jayashri Padmanabhan — campus@theaggie.org

Police chief provides information about safety, Unitrans asks riders to remain patient throughout delays

 A deluge of winter rain recently hit the UC Davis campus — in the period of Jan. 1 to Jan. 18, 7.83 inches of rain were measured in the nearby Sacramento Executive Airport according to the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Large amounts of rain pose a particular set of challenges for campus management and students, especially when it comes to maintaining safety. According to Interim UC Davis Police Chief Jennifer Garcia, the most important part of remaining safe is planning ahead.

“Check the weather before leaving [for campus], especially if you are going to be gone all day,” Garcia said. “For students, you leave your home in the morning and you don’t go back until the evening or sometimes late in the evening. Check the weather throughout the day. It might be really sunny and bright in the morning but by the evening it’s torrential floods.”

Even in the rain, police officers have to be ready to respond at a moment’s notice. Garcia encourages students to make use of police officer’s weather preparation methods.

“One of the things we like to encourage officers to do is to have what we call a ‘go bag,’ in a case like this when we are experiencing flooding […],” Garcia said. “In a ‘go bag,’ you have extra socks, extra clothes, your toiletries, any medications you might need, jammies, snacks, a couple bottles of water — to have that in your car at all times. I suggest that for everybody in times of severe weather.”

According to Garcia, a lot of work related to winter weather, especially flooding, falls onto UC Davis Facilities Management.

“What we do for severe weather is we do rely on Facilities [Management] to supply sandbags if needed, and they would be the response to areas on campus that are flooding as far as if we need to divert the water or pump out the water of a basement,” Garcia said. “We would work with Safety Services risk management if there was a major problem on campus.”

Garcia also advised students to take extra caution when biking during severe weather.

“Wear some sort of reflective gear, because when it’s darker out it’s harder to see people,” Garcia said. “Also your peripheral vision is very important when you are driving and/or on a bike and even walking. So you want to make sure that your headgear, even though you’re trying to keep yourself really warm, you’ve got to make sure that your peripheral vision is really clear.”

This extra caution when driving also applies to Unitrans drivers. According to Amelia Bizjak, the operations manager for Unitrans, bus drivers must take extra precautions to maintain safety.

“Logistically, the rain provides an extra challenge for our drivers, similar to how driving in the rain in a car is more difficult,” Bizjak said via email. “Like in a car, vision is reduced and in order to be safer drivers need to go slower. There are also many more cars on the road, as people who would normally bike either switch to driving their own car or riding the bus.”

In addition to having to drive much more attentively, drivers also face the challenge of increased ridership on buses.

“A lot of people who ride their bikes switch to alternative methods of getting around Davis on stormy days, and Unitrans is the alternative for a good number of people,” Bizjak said via email. “Our buses tend to be a lot more packed on rainy days as a result.”

Because of increased ridership, late and crowded buses are the most common complaints during rainy weather. Bizjak wants to assure riders that Unitrans does everything it can to keep the system running smoothly.

“When the weather is more severe we tend to get more concerns about lateness or being passed up at stops than in the more mild weather,” Bizjak said via email. “As mentioned before, the increased ridership and hazardous conditions tend to make our buses run late, and we are always very sorry to inconvenience our passengers who are trying to reach their destinations in a timely manner […] All of our drivers work hard to ensure we can provide safe transportation on a daily basis in rain or shine to the City of Davis.”

For Ariana Camarena, a first-year environmental policy major, the biggest challenge on stormy days is the decrease in morale to face the day.

“It usually just makes me want to stay in my dorm and not really go outside,” Camarena said. “Even though I do have class, I have to force myself to go. Whereas days where there is nice weather, I am kind of more encouraged to go because you can dress nice and look nice.”

Camarena’s experiences in the rain have taught her how to prepare for such weather.

“I have to wear a lot of layers: three layers of jackets, a scarf, an umbrella and my rain boots,” Camarena said. “It’s a lot more of a process. And you have to deal with locking your bike, so that takes like longer. It’s a hassle.”

Written by: Kenton Goldsby — campus@theaggie.org