DAAP Michigan Student Assembly presidential candidate Kate Stenvig said a key point in her party’s agenda is building an April 1 rally in Washington, when the U.S. Supreme Court hears cases challenging University admissions policies.
“We’re using a campaign to build for the march on Washington,” Stenvig said. “After (last week’s presidential debates), people from the other parties came up to me and said they supported a lot of the things we were saying. Even though they were running against us, they definitely supported affirmative action.”
But Stenvig said regardless of the Supreme Court’s ruling, her party will always stand for race-conscious admissions.
“The question of integration in education is something that’s central to every student,” she said. “If your education is based on the promise of inequality between people and segregation, your education is degraded, and that goes for everybody.”
Stenvig added a Court ruling against University admissions policies would significantly hurt black enrollment to the University – an argument supported by DAAP’s website, which says without the current policies, this year’s graduating Law School class would have only two black students.
In addition to calling for a march on Washington, Vice-presidential candidate Cyril Cordor said the party challenges the administration to bar student tuition hikes, hire more minority faculty and increase minority enrollment at the University by expanding financial aid.
“Even over the past couple years, minority enrollment has really been going down,” Cordor said. “The whole point of having affirmative action is to integrate this campus.”
Cordor said while other parties pledge to improve campus life with the addition student amenities, DAAP believes national and international issues are central to students.
“The student government definitely has to take up these issues,” he said. “When people say MSA shouldn’t take up these issues, it sounds like people are saying U of M has seceded as another country.”
“I think it is necessary for other parties to take a stance on these issues,” MSA School of Education Rep. Agnes Aleobua said. “They can take a stance on Entr