This week’s ASUCR meeting began with a visit from the parents of sexual assault survivor Amanda Nguyen seeking support for a Survivor’s Bill of Rights that is currently sitting in the House of Representatives. Summer Shafer also returned to the horseshoe as the new vice president of external affairs.
Amanda Nguyen is a 24-year-old Harvard University alumnus who was raped two months before graduating. After experiencing difficulties with the Massachusetts legal system in regards to processing a sexual assault case, Nguyen decided that change needed to be brought forth in order to establish equal and consistent rights for survivors.
Nguyen worked with Congresswomen Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who is also head of the Democratic National Committee and Ann Wagner to create House Resolution 230. Because laws regarding how sexual assault cases are handled can vary greatly by state, the resolution encourages individual states to adopt their own sexual assault survivors’ bill of rights to create a standardized set of rights.
The petition to move the resolution through the House and to the Senate requires 150,000 signatures and has been put online in order to collect signatures faster. “Right now, she has above 90,000 signatures,” Nguyen’s father stated. He also stated that his daughter urged people to contact their state representatives to put pressure on the issue.
Next, ASUCR President Ashley Harano welcomed Shafer as the new vice president of external affairs. She also announced the action that has been taken on the Damaged Classroom Initiative, brought up last quarter. “Classrooms in Olmsted have already been improved. If you have a class in Olmsted … you may notice that a lot of the classrooms have been fixed,” Harano explained.
Shafer, who previously served as a first-year fellow for the office of external affairs for the 2013-14 academic school year and a CHASS senator for the 2014-15 school year, began her term. Shafer announced that she will be overseeing the Highlander Action Committee, Lobby Corp. and the Highlander Vote Coalition.
Highlights:
-The UC Women’s Caucus will be held on May 21 at UCLA
-The UC Student Lobby Conference (STC) will take place in Sacramento from April 16-18
-Data from the TAPS office is set to be collected regarding the utilization of the free parking provided in gold lots on campus during finals week to assess the success of the project.
-The senate approved Johnathan Li as senate secretary by a vote of 11-1-0.
