At Tuesday night’s USG Senate meeting, there were updates on the IFC Working Group. In addition, a resolution to pressure the USC administration to recall attention to a Lunar New Year Instagram takeover where a student was harassed online failed to pass.
Chief Diversity Officer Kavita Rai gave an update on the IFC Working Group, a committee composed of USC students, administrators and faculty. The group is working towards developing programs and resources for healing, accountability and education for the USC community following the events of Sigma Nu in October. Rai’s involvement in the group on behalf of USG is, “to increase student oversight to administration complicity and to ensure student voices are heard.” Working with the USC Office of Fraternity and Sorority Leadership Development, the group discussed FSLD standards and accreditation and explored ideas such as creating IFC risk teams, pre-and post-review meetings of events and having sober rooms in events involving alcohol, and other measures. Prevention education in the form of online modules and in-person workshops are other areas that the IFC Working Group plans to improve by modifying the required courses all involved students must take.
Rai recognized that, despite efforts toward institutional change, there are still obstacles the IFC Working Group faces. “Student culture will trump all that,” Rai said, when discussing how the committee is interacting with students and how these changes will improve Greek life and campus life overall.
At the previous meeting, Senators Aidan Feighery and Victor Ye introduced a resolution calling for a stronger university response to the 2022 Lunar/Chinese New Year incident. Before it was brought to a discussion, Senator Feighery requested the resolution be tabled for a different time, noting the document needed to be worked on, but emphasized the importance of addressing the issue in a timely manner due to the ever-approaching end of the semester. This led to a lengthy discussion as to what should be done about the resolution: Should it be tabled so it can be discussed at any time in the future? Should it be officially postponed to the next senate meeting? Several technicalities were also discussed, such as the fact that no more than six USG Senators can meet privately to discuss USG business without calling an official meeting.
After about 25 minutes, the Senate as a whole decided against tabling or postponing the resolution, a motion voted on by the majority, but against Senators Feighery and Ye’s wishes. Several senators mentioned that because the Asian Pacific American Student Assembly did not explicitly approve the resolution, they did not think it was wise to pass it and bring unnecessary attention to an issue that could potentially put the student involved at harm again.
When the resolution was finally brought to a vote, two senators approved, and seven opposed. Three senators abstained from voting. Vice President Nivea Krishnan officially declared the resolution had failed to pass, and the matter was brought to a close.
Toward the end of the lengthy meeting, Communications Officer Paul Yi announced his nominations for the communications department and Vice President Nivea Krishnan announced her nominations for the legislative branch of USG. Both of these will be brought to an official vote at the next meeting.
USG Senate meetings are held at TCC 350 at 7 p.m. every Tuesday.