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 213, is sponsored by Student Action Senator Rosemary Hua and Student Action Senator-elect Lauren Week and will help dance groups on campus find spaces to practice. Hua, a dancer herself, hopes the bill will raise awareness of the issue.

“Hopefully, with this bill we’re showing the school that there’s a huge need (for practice space),” Hua said. “Our community is suffering.”

According to Hua, there are more than 15 dance groups on campus, encompassing approximately 600 students. Primarily, these groups hold practice on Lower Sproul, in front of Haas Pavilion and in Hearst Gym.

However, scheduling time for the spaces in Hearst Gym is often complicated, said Week, and with Lower Sproul closing this year for construction, available dance spaces will be increasingly difficult to find.

“Currently, dance groups have been forced to dance in the parking structures underneath the RSF and Underhill Field, which is dirty and unsafe, especially at night when most of our groups practice,” said Week in an email. “This is why SB 213 is so crucial.”

Hua negotiated a $33,000 contract with Recreational Sports Director Michael Weinberger to open up Strawberry Canyon Recreational Area for dancers during the current school year.

Weinberger said that working with the ASUC has been a great experience and that Rec Sports would be willing to continue working with the dance community as long as the ASUC can continue to supply funding.

“We’re very much willing to continue (the contract),” Weinberger said. “We just need to cover staffing. That’s where the money is going.”

Despite the addition of Strawberry Canyon, some members of the dance community still expressed concern about finding sufficient practice spaces. Although Strawberry Canyon has been helpful in alleviating the problem of limited space, Berkeley Ballroom member Caitlyn Keith said it can be difficult and inconvenient for larger dance groups to find transportation to Strawberry Canyon, and space is still limited for all dance groups.

Hua said she hopes the bill and the agreement made with Rec Sports will foster a positive relationship between the campus and the dance community.

“I’m hoping that this bill will also show the Rec Center that we’re thankful for what’s happening,” Hua said.

SB 213 will be discussed in the senate’s external committee on Monday then voted on during Wednesday’s senate meeting.

Contact Jennie Yoon at jyoon@dailycal.org.

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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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Tran announced an ongoing investigation into a senator’s alleged misuse of ASUC polling resources at a public ASUC Senate committee meeting Monday night and declared the investigation’s end less than a day later. Tran said Hua was innocent of all allegations against her.

This was the first investigation conducted by the attorney general’s office this academic year, according to Tran.

The attorney general’s office launched the investigation after Hua’s GSI for Political Science 171, “California Politics,” approached Tran over winter break with the concern that Hua had used ASUC polling resources to complete a class project.

Tran said documentation provided by Hua demonstrated that she used a publicly available polling service and paid for the survey with her own money. His review of Hua’s emails, classwork and bank statements after announcing the investigation led him to close the investigation the next morning.

“I was expecting that this would be handled as an internal manner,” Tran said. “I had hoped (it would be), and I guess that is my fault.”

Tran said he expects the ASUC to consider revisions to the reporting procedure of the attorney general’s office. He emphasized that the investigation was the standard response to allegations brought to the attorney general’s office.

“I would imagine following the fallout of this incident, we would begin formalizing reporting procedure from the attorney general’s office,” Tran said.

While the ASUC bylaws require Tran to investigate allegations reported to his office, he said there are no policies that outline the investigative process or that specify when investigations are to be made public. He said that he interprets the ASUC Constitution to require the attorney general to report all ongoing investigations and happenings within his office to the Constitutional and Procedural Review Committee, whose meetings are open to the public.

“(The investigation) was supposed to remain internal to the Senate until it either moved forward to prosecution, or it ended because there was no evidence,” Hua said in an email.

CalSERVE Senator Nolan Pack said he expects the ASUC will discuss refining the investigation process in the near future.

“(What) we’re hoping to see come out of this process is a more clearly defined institutional structure for dealing with this sort of situation,” said CalSERVE Senator Nolan Pack, who serves on the Constitutional and Procedural Review Committee. “This is an opportunity for us to improve the way we do investigations.”

Contact Libby Rainey at lrainey@dailycal.org.

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Tran announced an ongoing investigation into a senator’s alleged misuse of ASUC polling resources at an ASUC Senate committee meeting Monday night. Hua had allegedly used ASUC polling resources for a class project.

“In the course of our investigation, my office determined that the original trigger for the investigation, an inquiry submitted to my office regarding possible violations of ASUC rules, was premised on inaccurate information based on several misunderstandings,” Tran said in the statement.

Tran said documentation provided by Hua demonstrated that she used a publicly available polling service and paid for the survey with her own money.

See the full statement below:

Libby Rainey covers higher education. Contact her at lrainey@dailycal.org.

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Hua allegedly used ASUC polling resources for a class project, an act that may indicate improper use of ASUC resources. The attorney general, Hinh Tran, said he first became aware of the situation when Hua’s GSI for Political Science 171, California Politics, approached him over winter break with the concern that Hua’s class project used polling technology that normally costs between $500 and $1,000, resources unavailable to most students.

Tran, a UC Berkeley senior, said that he launched an ongoing investigation into the suspicious use of the polling service.

According to Tran, Hua said that she used a polling service earlier in the year for ASUC purposes. She later allegedly asked the service to add questions for her class project, according to Tran, which Hua claimed the service did free of charge.

Hua said she was caught off guard by the allegations and that she denies all allegations against her.

“This is a perfect example of sensationalization,” Hua said. “I promise to all of you readers that I paid zero ASUC funds for my political science paper, and, in fact, I wouldn’t even know how to do that.”

She said that the only way the ASUC was involved was in introducing her to the polling site and emphasized that absolutely no ASUC money was used toward the questionnaire.

Whether the extra questions cost ASUC resources or not, the use of the service indicates a breach of ASUC bylaws, Tran said.

Under Title 1, Article 16, of the ASUC bylaws, senators cannot receive or use financial or material benefits unless the benefits were specifically allocated to them at the time of the ASUC election, according to Tran.

“The red flag to me from the report that Hinh gave is there are multiple inconsistencies in the conversations that were had about this — the follow up conversations had different storylines,” said CalSERVE Senator Nolan Pack. “That suggests that the matter should definitely be investigated. At least we need to figure out what really happened.”

It remains unclear if Hua will face judicial review, but Tran says he is in the process of collecting and reviewing documentation, including emails.

“The bylaws do not explicitly set out punishment for this,” Tran said. “I’m not sure there’s even precedent for this. I’d like to have all the facts before I move forward, but this is just the beginning of an investigation.”

Libby Rainey covers higher education. Contact her at lrainey@dailycal.org.

Correction(s):
A previous version of this article stated that Hua is being investigated for improper use of student funds. In fact, she is being investigated for improper use of ASUC resources.

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Because the senate was not in session over the summer, the newspaper signed an agreement with the University of California in June to transfer this semester’s funds but still needs to get senate approval of a Memorandum of Understanding for the next four and a half years.

The initiative was approved by students in the 2012 ASUC general election, requiring them to pay a $2 semesterly fee for five years to support the paper and its online presence.

The Memorandum of Understanding that will be drafted between the ASUC, the university and the newspaper will lay out what role the ASUC will play in transferring the fees to the newspaper. It became contentious last spring when senators questioned whether having the agreement between the university and the paper would compromise the paper’s editorial independence.

“I was concerned with the implications it would have on the ASUC and the independence of the Daily Cal,” Student Action Sen. Mihir Deo said in an interview. “The next step is making sure student fees are not being misused in any way.”

Daily Cal Editor in Chief and President Stephanie Baer said the ASUC would act as a third-party organization in transferring the funds between the university and the paper and maintained that the fee will not interfere with the newspaper’s editorial independence.

“We are going to require that it is clear to students that (The Daily Californian is) no longer financially independent,” ASUC President Connor Landgraf said in an interview.

Baer said the fee does not compromise the newspaper’s editorial independence.

“The way that I see it is that students are paying for a service,” Baer said at the meeting. “It is not a question of independence. It is a way to make sure we are doing our best to serve our readership.”

At the meeting, Student Action Sen. Rosemary Hua asked if a student not affiliated with The Daily Cal could serve on the senior editorial board of the paper since students will be paying to help support it.

Baer said she and Landgraf would discuss the suggestion. She also said that the newspaper will release a monthly report of major expenses on its website to ensure that any major changes with the paper are clearly visible to the public.

Contact Alyssa Neumann at aneumann@dailycal.org

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