Click here to read the Senior Editorial Board’s full endorsements.

In the past academic year, UC Berkeley students have met history head-on, continually shouting for our rights and ideals — whatever those may be. Instances including the Berkeley College Republicans’ intentionally racist bake sale, police violence at Occupy Cal, Louis Farrakhan’s visit to campus and Chancellor Robert Birgeneau’s resignation, just to name a few, have challenged and provoked us. Though the war of words on Sproul and in the ASUC Senate may seem greater than ever, the aforementioned events all elicited the best exchange UC Berkeley can offer.

This year, we took a stand. Not once or twice but on a multitude of occasions. With ASUC elections in full swing, we have the chance to take another — this time for our student government. For too long, we’ve seen the ASUC’s balance between representing students and communicating with the administration shift to disproportionately favor the latter — the ASUC’s last two presidents remained unacceptably silent as the student government’s autonomy whittled away.

With CalSERVE back in action after not running an executive slate in 2011, partisan rivalries are back in full force. Despite the party’s impressive comeback, its main competitor, Student Action, still seems willing to slate weak candidates and expect to win. Meanwhile, though third parties — like the Defend Affirmative Action Party and the new Students for a Democratic University party — have brought salient, unfiltered honesty and boldness to student politics, they remain overly caustic and impractical factions that could never truly represent the student body as a whole.

The endorsements that follow are The Daily Californian Senior Editorial Board’s recommendations on how you should vote this election season. In the end, the choice is yours alone. But we hope you will take a stand and put your student government in the hands of individuals unwilling to back down when representing you.