The event was organized by the ASUC Office of the President in conjunction with ASUC senators Sadia Saifuddin, Rosemary Hua and Megan Majd. In order to raise awareness of such crimes on campus, victims of sexual assault shared their stories.

According to a Berkeley Police Department crime report, there were 39 reported incidents of sexual assault in the city of Berkeley in 2012, up from 20 incidents in 2011.

“(Sexual assault) is something that doesn’t discriminate against color or gender,” Saifuddin said. “It’s something that happens to a lot of people.”

According to Bay Area Women Against Rape training coordinator Agustina Perez, 85 percent of sexual assaults are committed by a person whom the victim knows, and only one in 10 victims report the crime.

Student attendees included members of the campus sorority system and the ASUC. The workshop was facilitated by UCPD, University Health Services and BAWAR.

“(Events like Fight Back) allow survivors of sexual assault who are silenced to have a voice,” Hua said. “But it also allows for facetime between UCPD and students (and) facilities a discussion.”

Speakers at the event noted the importance of discussing sexual assault in an open and safe environment.

“The reason why sexual violence is rising at such alarming rates is because people don’t talk about it,” Perez said. “Anything that will get people to talk and create safe spaces is a step in the right direction.”

Community leaders provided attendees with resources to defend themselves against attack.

During the workshop, UCPD officers offered a pepper spray demonstration as well as basic self-defense techniques. Officers said one of the most basic but useful techniques in the case of an assault is to shout for help. The workshop also offered free pepper spray to participants.

“There is nothing that anyone can do that warrants (or) causes rape,” Perez said during her presentation. “The only person responsible for rape is the one committing it.”

Director and Title IX Officer Denise Oldman of the Office for the Prevention of Harassment and Discrimination said that it is important to know that there are allies in the community for sexual assault victims. She addressed the various resources available to students, including medical, psychological and emotional health services, residential needs and prevention help.

Members of the ASUC and campus community alike said they hope events like Fight Back will educate the students that attended and continue to raise awareness about sexual assault and violence within the UC Berkeley community.

“I feel like it’s important to have events that raise awareness about how critical an issue (sexual violence is) both on campus and in general,” said sophomore Taylor Fugere, who is a member of Greeks Against Sexual Assault and involved in the Gender Equity Resource Center.

UCPD Officer Brendan Tinney said he hopes to see more involvement with sexual assault prevention from other groups on campus, such as fraternities.

“I think there’s some interest specifically in the part of fraternities, at least some of them,” Tinney said. “But I’m waiting for them to reach out. You don’t (only) teach the group that’s interested in the topic.”

Contact Jennie Yoon at jyoon@dailycal.org.

Correction(s):
A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that there had been 39 incidents of sexual assault on the UC Berkeley campus this year, a 95 percent increase from 19 incidents the previous year. In fact, there were 39 reported incidents of sexual assault in the city of Berkeley in 2012, up from 20 incidents in 2011.

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The bill, SB 130, states that policies implemented by campus bodies such as the Center for Student Conduct and the Title IX compliance officer strip sexual assault victims’ rights in the reporting process. The bill was passed with 12 votes in support, five against and one abstention. Two senators were absent from the vote.

SB 130 was authored by Aryle Butler and CalSERVE elections coordinator Anais LaVoie, along with CalSERVE Senators Klein Lieu, Megan Majd, and DeeJay Pepito. Pepito is running for ASUC president in the upcoming elections.

Two sexual assault victims spoke at the meeting about experiences with ineffective university policies in dealing with cases of assault.

Butler, who said she was a victim of sexual assault, spoke about inadequate campus responses to complaints of sexual harassment made by victims who have chosen to remain anonymous.

 Present at the meeting was Title IX officer Denise Oldham with the Office for the Prevention of Harassment and Discrimination and student conduct specialist Erin Niebylski in the Center for Student Conduct. Both offices are specifically named in the bill as campus entities with ineffective policies.

“Our concern is that misinformation about how these cases are handled might deter students from coming forward with complaints or, at the very least, cause confusion about how these cases are handled,” Oldham said in an email after the meeting.

Lieu rebuffed implications that there were mistakes in the bill and said that the authors of the bill had it reviewed by the ASUC lawyer for any inaccuracies.

“Literally, there are over 10 documents you have to go (through) to understand sexual assault on this campus,” Lieu said at the meeting. “I think that’s egregious. I hope with this bill we can start streamlining this and start having (the policies) make sense for students.”

The bill takes issue with a number of specific UC Berkeley policies, including the campus definition of sexual assault, which the bill claims requires victims to prove they were not consenting rather than providing affirmative proof of consent.

Additionally, the bill states that there are more resources and knowledge available for those accused of assault than for victims, as is evident on the website for the Center for Student Conduct, which “provides a flowchart for the accused to understand disciplinary processes, but does not provide information allowing survivors to understand what happens when a report is made or follow-up on their reports once submitted,” according to the bill.

More seriously, the bill claims that if the Center for Student Conduct determines there is not sufficient evidence to warrant further investigation of an assault accusation, there is no recourse or appeals process for a victim to appeal this decision.

Student Action Senator Rosemary Hua was one of several senators concerned about the language of the bill, particularly the clause stating that the ASUC holds “no confidence in the University’s current sexual assault policies and disciplinary procedures.”

“We should tell them what they’re doing wrong, but there is a fine balance — we also need to work with them,” Hua said during the meeting. Hua announced at the meeting that she herself has been a victim of sexual assault.

In a later email, Hua said senators should sit down with campus officials and start amending policies instead of condemning them. She added that she believed the bill should be sent back to committee to rework its language.

Supporters maintained that the bill was not an attack on campus bodies but instead a way to bring the ASUC into the discussion of assault on campus.

Rafi Lurie, a Student Action senator and a candidate for ASUC president in this spring’s election, said he felt that the bill should have been tabled for a week to address Hua’s concerns.

“I feel that because, as a survivor, she feels that way, out of respect to her and people on campus who feel like her, it would have been better to rework the language and then pass it so that all parties that the bill aims to address would feel comfortable with it,” Lurie said in an email.

Other Student Action senators echoed the concerns of Lurie and Hua, including Student Action Senator Mihir Deo, who said in an email that this was not a CalSERVE against Student Action issue.

“The prime reason I voted against the bill was that this bill was not clearly vetted,” Deo said. “The student advocate wasn’t even consulted about the bill, and it creates a new wing in her office. She also stated that there was miscommunication on both sides.”

CalSERVE Senator Nolan Pack spoke passionately in favor of the bill during the meeting, saying that it was the ASUC’s job to protect students.

“Though the ASUC’s legal counsel confirmed that the bill accurately reflects university policies, several senators disregarded this advice and supported the notion that there was a ‘misunderstanding,’ in spite of the fact that nobody who criticized the bill could identify or articulate the alleged misunderstanding,” Pack said in an email.

Student Action Senators Chen-Chen Huo, Lurie, Hua, Deo and Ryan Kang voted against the bill. Student Action Senator Nils Gilberston abstained, and Student Action Senators Emily Chen and Tom Seung Kyun Lee were absent from the vote. All other senators voted in support.

Ally Rondoni is the lead student government reporter. Contact her at arondoni@dailycal.org.

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“I’m an EECS major and I’m a senator and I’ve been really involved, but because of all of the time I’m putting into both, my health got worse,“ Rajasekar said in her farewell speech to the senate. “This is one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever had to make.”

Rajasekar ran on a platform promising students better mental health resources, free computer repair and better cellphone service in engineering buildings.

“I tried to take a step back from my school work and the senate so I could do both,” Rajasekar said. “I started not doing as well in my school work, and I felt that I wasn’t doing the senate position justice. I talked to my parents and my doctors, and we all decided it was better for me to work on my health first before I took on other extracurriculars.”

Nils Gilbertson, a Student Action party member who ran in last year’s senate race, said that he has been invited to take the position.

“They’ve contacted me, and I more or less said I’m leaning towards it, but I haven’t made a final decision,” Gilbert said.

According to the ASUC Constitution, the person who received the greatest number of votes and who did not win a senate seat will fill the vacated office.

Fellow senator and CalSERVE party member Megan Majd spoke highly of Rajasekar’s work.

“Sahana is truly an amazing individual and is a wonderful friend off and on the senate floor, she always put her constituents first and has really made an impact on the engineering community,” Majd said in an email.

Academic Affairs Vice President Natalie Gavello spoke to Rajasekar’s work ethic and determination in juggling school and senate work.

“In addition to being an EECS major (and) a member of the Greek system, she still made time to go above and beyond her duties as a senator,” Gavello said.  “Working to increase Bechtel library hours, as well as mental health issues, were only a few of the many things I saw Sahana do in her several months as a senator.”

Rajasekar said she plans to stay as involved as possible, especially by continuing her work to keep the engineering library open 24/7.

“That’s the part about this that makes me feel better,” Rajasekar said. “You don’t need to be a senator to make changes in the school. It’s going to be more time for me to do things, and it will allow me to be healthy as well.”

Ally Rondoni is the lead ASUC reporter. Contact her at arondoni@dailycal.org.

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The senate unanimously passed a bill at its meeting Wednesday evening that recognizes “the history and presence of lynching and anti-black sentiment” in the United States, California and UC Berkeley and urges the ASUC to implement “mandatory racial sensitivity curriculum” for campus Greek organizations. The bill was drafted in response to a stuffed zombie hung Tuesday from a third-story window of the Theta Delta Chi fraternity house as a part of an annual haunted house philanthropy event.

It also requires ASUC President Connor Landgraf to write a letter with the chair of the Black Student Union to UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau and the Interfraternity Council Standards Board to hold the fraternity “responsible for reckless disregard of the risk of terrorizing the campus community” even if the decoration was not intended to be malicious.

Critics said the decoration resembled a lynching, which is connected to a period of history when blacks were suppressed and terrorized. Members of the fraternity took down the zombie Tuesday afternoon and issued an open apology letter for the decoration, stating that they did not intend to offend anyone.

“I hope that as strong as you are as a community, you are as forgiving as a community,” said Student Action Senator Mihir Deo, a member of TDX, at the meeting.

Still, members of the black community condemned the ASUC for what they called its inability to protect students and said recurring senate inaction with regard to racially insensitive incidents had led to increasing marginalization of communities that are already underrepresented on campus.

“The political reality is that blacks make up (about) 3 percent of campus (undergraduates),” said Marcel Jones, a campus junior and co-chair of political affairs of the Black Student Union, at the meeting. “We already feel like we are not supposed to be here, that we are not meant to strive outside a certain segment of campus because other segments ignore our culture, our history and our struggles and create violent images like this of lynching.”

According to Destiny Iwuoma, a sophomore who works at the Black Recruitment and Retention Center on campus, incidents such as this could affect the retention of black students on campus. He noted that the TDX house is located across the street from the African American Theme Program in a Unit 1 residence hall.

“As a member of the Greek system, (I think) we’re ignorant about issues like this,” said CalSERVE senator Megan Majd. “The number of people of color within the Greek system is already so minimal.”

Jeremy Gordon covers student government. Contact him at jgordon@dailycal.org.

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Measure S, which residents will vote on in November, would make sitting or lying on sidewalks in Berkeley commercial districts from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. a punishable offense.

The measure aims to revitalize business in the city but has been criticized for its potential effects on Berkeley’s homeless community. The Berkeley City Council voted 6-3 to put Measure S on the November ballot in July.

“It’s about making our community friendly, welcoming, and feeling safe,” said Roland Peterson, executive director of the Telegraph Business Improvement District, at the ASUC meeting.

Senate Bill 64 — which the ASUC Senate voted 18-1, with one abstention, to endorse — calls Measure S “deeply misguided” and denounces the spirit of sit-lie laws. Last year’s senate voted 18-1 to oppose a similar sit-lie ordinance that the City Council was considering.

A first violation of Measure S would be categorized as a minor infraction and result in a $75 fine or community service, according to the measure’s text, but a second violation could be classified as either an infraction or a misdemeanor. The American Civil Liberties Union and the National Lawyers Guild has come out against the measure.

“This is a mean-spirited and callous way of approaching the homeless issue,” said CalSERVE Senator Nolan Pack to loud applause at Wednesday’s meeting. “It pushes people that are already marginalized further into the margins of society.”

But Student Action Senator Tom Lee, who was the only senator to vote against the bill, said the measure could improve student safety, adding that it is the duty of the ASUC to prioritize student concerns.

“My community members have come up to me and shared bad experiences of being harassed by homeless people,” Lee said.

A joint ASUC-Graduate Assembly poll conducted in October of 2011 found that 66% of respondents surveyed would frequent Telegraph Avenue businesses more often if the area felt “safer,” “cleaner” and “more inviting.”

Cooperative Movement Senator Jorge Pacheco challenged the accuracy of that survey, questioning whether members of the Berkeley Student Cooperative community were represented in its statistics. An attempt to amend the bill to include the results of the survey ultimately failed at the meeting.

CalSERVE Senator Megan Majd suggested that if the homeless were banned from sitting on sidewalks in commercial districts, they might be forced to enter residential areas.

If the measure is approved by voters in the November election, it will go into effect on July 1, 2013.

Contact Jeremy Gordon at jgordon@dailycal.org.

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