One of the main policies for candidate Aidan Feighery for president, and running mate, Ashley Ka for vice president is improving USC’s approach to sexual assault prevention and teaching affirmative consent.
Amid student protests of greek life and sexual assault in 2021, Feighery and Ka said they were inspired by their fellow students holding its administration accountable and they hope to be a voice for the silenced on campus. They plan to do this by working with USC to create an in-person freshman orientation module/health class that targets this subject and also promotes training for related issues for all organizations holding large parties near campus.
“I’ve spent a significant amount of my term as Senator working on this issue (sexual assault prevention)” said Feighery. “I ended up passing a resolution calling for more information on disaffiliation from the university. That got me into the room with several USC administrators from Student Affairs who would talk to me about what is and isn’t possible and how we can actually go about solving this problem.”
Disaffiliation refers to USC fraternities cutting ties with the university.
Feighery and Ka also proposed a new Fryft policy which would include offering a cap on single rides along with unlimited shared rides. They said this solution would balance USC costs concerns and student discontent with the shared rides program.
“Our solution is informed by statistics from the office of USC Transportation stating that students spent an average of $450/month on single rides, resulting in the program exceeding its budget by several times,” says the candidate’s plan.
Given the outpouring of student concerns and anecdotes, we believe that our solution balances university cost concerns and student safety/accessibility needs in a way that will be palatable to the university.”
Feighery and Ka have outlined all proposed policies and inclusion acts through their “Feasibility Explained” plan which also details how and why they plan to continue in their specific efforts.
The candidates believe that this document is what sets them apart from other races. “(It) explains exactly the work that we’ve already done, outlines the problem, outlines the solution, and talks about why it’s possible to accomplish. Ashley and I are incredibly dedicated to not giving out a wish list that says we want free everything,” said Feighery.
Other policies included in Feighery and Ka’s campaign include ‘Yellow Jacket Accountability’ after several USC students have reported harassment from the ambassadors according to the candidates.
“USG could accomplish this project on its own by creating a public form asking where the incident occurred and at what time, but we would rather work with the people running the program. We believe gaining their buy-in will result in quicker internal accountability and a safer campus,” according to the Feasibility Explained plan.
Aside from individual and community safety policies, Feighery and Ka also plan to keep student advocacy at the front of their campaign by proposing policies like I-20 which would assist create scholarship funding for international students in need and ‘Red Brick Bubble’ which provides USG funding to support members of the community in outreach projects.
Outside of policies Feighery and Ka also said they plan to address USG’s “toxic” office culture, as he calls it, in order to promote student involvement and inclusion within the organization.
“We don’t get to do the greatest good that we can because we don’t get all of the incredible, wonderful people who genuinely want to make good things happen on this campus…USG has an incredible power to do good on this campus, but only when we look internally towards our own problems and start to fix them at the root,” said Feighery.
Presidential candidate Aidan Feighery is a fourth year political science major with a minor in East Asian languages and cultures and currently serves as senator of the Accessibility Committee and previously served as a General Member. While a member of the student government he has authored multiple resolutions and drawn attention to groups in need like those of Armenian students according to his candidate ticket.
Ashley Ka, the vice presidential candidate, is a philosophy, politics, and economics major with a minor in computer programming. Ka is also the Director of Membership for the Trojan Debate Squad and has also interned for Senator Maria Cantwell’s office.