15 OctOber 24 - 30, 2024 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents David Baker, the committee chair for legislative affairs, says the group is work- ing on a party to the polls project for Nov. 5 to help get students to polling locations. On Oct. 30, they also plan on hosting “Meet your Candidates for Texas Con- gress,” a panel for politicians in and around the UTD area to come and interact with students. Baker says that so far Dem- ocrats Averie Bishop and David Carstens have both confirmed their presence. Re- publicans Matt Shaheen and Angie Chen Button have already declined, and the committee is waiting on the responses from more than 10 other candidates. The Student Government also passed a resolution calling for faculty to excuse student absences on Election Day. “We can’t enforce a voter holiday, but we are trying to encourage professors to excuse absences on Election Day to encourage more people to go out and vote,” Baker said. Since the start of the fall semester, vari- ous on- and off-campus groups have pro- vided daily opportunities for students to register to vote. Baker said that his commit- tee’s voter registration drive faced a funda- mental issue, not because students weren’t interested but because so many of them were already registered to vote. Beyond registering students to vote, on-campus groups like Comets for Better Transit dedicate their time to attending local City Council meetings and DART board meetings to provide a crucial stu- dent perspective on issues facing the uni- versity such as the need for more housing developments around campus with an emphasis on mixed use and transit-ori- ented designs. Comets for Better Transit President Chandu Garapaty has seen the organization grow dramatically in the past few years as more students become interested in trans- portation issues, The organization contin- ues to realize success on issues like zoning for new housing developments around cam- pus and increased frequency for the 883 DART route. “I know that the race on the presidential level is taking up most of the media’s atten- tion, but I really hope people vote down the ballot, since state and local positions have such a major impact on our daily lives,” Ga- rapaty said. Garapaty has been particularly concerned about the recent push by cities including Plano and Rowlett to decrease DART fund- ing, and she appreciates that many members of the Richardson City Council understand the value of public transportation. Alongside organizations like the Dallas Area Transit Al- liance, Comets for Better Transit plans to ad- vocate in defense of DART at the next Texas legislative session. Benjamin Goodine, vice president of Comets for Better Transit, said that most of their support has come from off-cam- pus and that UTD had in the past been quite difficult to work with if not outright opposed to initiatives such as new housing developments independent from the uni- versity. “It has been tough with UTD since some- times they just don’t show up to council meetings, and when they show up they are usually against competition,” Goodine said. “They were against some housing proposals being built around campus because they weren’t going to be running it. It was just kind of weird” State Politics T he passage of SB 17 left various stu- dent services without any sort of di- rection or support. This led to groups such as Student Government’s Diversity Eq- uity and Belonging Committee taking on the burden of hosting these events without di- rect university support any more. Student Government Sen. Alexander de Jesus-Colon said that on a social level, the end of DEI programs sent shockwaves across campus. Student organizations were left in the dark regarding how they would fund their multicultural or LG- BTQ-affirming events. The Lavender Graduation and National Coming Out Day, both previously overseen by dedicated of- fices on campus, now fell to students if such events were to occur again. Diversity Equity and Belonging Committee chair Nandita Kumar said that her committee sorted through the various services pro- vided by the closed DEI office and the ser- vices that had not been relocated to other offices and would work to sustain as many as they possibly could. “I hope very soon there won’t be a posi- tion like what I am in right now, one in which a student has to run a graduation cer- emony before they have even graduated be- cause that is a little ridiculous,” Kumar said. “We shouldn’t have to host community events with no support from the university. And, we shouldn’t have to exist in a way in which our identities are treated hostilely by the state. It is disheartening to know that there are elected officials out there who think that they can get away with things like this because the harm that they cause is so beyond belief, and they don’t realize it be- cause they sit in their chambers and write laws about people they have never met, peo- ple whose stories they have never heard, and people whose experiences they will never understand.” Kumar and her committee say they have found it greatly rewarding to be able to have such a meaningful and tangible effect on their peers. To Kumar this is not an issue merely for those who come from a marginal- ized background because at a university such issues affect everyone. If students across the entire institution are struggling, then the institution is struggling; if the stu- dents are succeeding, then the institution is succeeding. Students can do their best to preserve the services that were once han- dled by professional staff, but Kumar has al- ready seen the negative effects of these state-level decisions. “We have a thriving academic environ- ment, but we are losing that. I have al- ready had professors leave UTD,” Kumar said. “We are seeing students who do not even want to come to Texas, and that af- fects the student experience. I see this, and I worry about the future of UTD and schools like it, but I am glad to be in this space and doing this work. It gives me hope for the future.” Kumar and de Jesus-Colon both empha- sized that it was ultimately students who stepped up to fill the holes created by state legislators. De Jesus-Colon said that al- though this political struggle against state legislators had been draining, the bonds and alliances student groups formed during this period have endured, and now those stu- dents are looking for more from the univer- sity and their elected officials. Federal Politics J oshua Farris, an interdisciplinary studies junior, will vote in a presiden- tial election for the first time this year. He has had one question for the older adults in his life: “Is it always this scary? “Perhaps I spend too much time reading the news for my own good,” Farris said. “Perhaps the stakes really are higher this time. Either way, I’m voting like my rights depend on it, and I’m encouraging those I know to do the same. Because they do.” Callie Sparks, a political science senior, feels frustrated and disenfranchised by the American political system because of the constant back and forth of misinformation as rights get stripped away. “I feel that the American political system is anti-female,” Sparks said. “There are many days when I realize that, even though the fight for women’s rights has come very far. There are so many instances where America makes being a female a disadvan- tage in life.” Leon Hayden, an international political economy junior, says that throughout his life there have been multiple instances in which the American political system did not seem to have his best interest at heart, amidst a hectic election season. “Overall, I’m exhausted,” Hayden said. “From having multiple attempts on [the life of] a party’s candidate to the outright degra- dation and slander aimed at the first Black/ Asian female candidate.” At UTD, students are not voting for the candidate they want as president but rather for the one they would dislike less as presi- dent. Feelings of disenfranchisement run rampant, and criticisms of the two-party po- litical system are the norm. Students look beyond just the process of voting and in- stead emphasize the constant grind of activ- ism if any progress is to be made in addition to electoral participation. “I think people should really focus on the tangible ways in which they can make change, because while we can all go vote, at the end of the day, if someone is hungry then they are hungry,” Kumar said. “Let’s come together and donate and work towards the issues we care about.” Gregorio Olivares Gutierrez served as the fi- nal editor-in-chief of The Mercury, UT Dal- las’ student newspaper, until campus administration fired him and then the rest of his management team. He now works as the editor-in-chief of The Retrograde, UT Dallas’ new independent student newspaper, doing the exact same thing as before but with less university censorship. He is a philosophy stu- dent at UT Dallas, and we asked him to write about the political climate on campus. Hand built not bougHt. 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