The Associated Students of the University of California (ASUC) Senate, the undergraduate student government at UC Berkeley, failed to pass a resolution to support the Third World Liberation Front strike in a six to nine vote with five abstentions. Of the five Senators who abstained, three were Third World people – Salvador Estrada, John Chang, and Floyd Huen.
While a resolution to pass “general support for the demands of twLF”, a failure to support the strike after four hours of debate made clear to the Estrada, Chang, Huen, and ally Mark St. Angelo that the ASUC could and did not truly support the strike or twLF in more than an empty gesture of a largely symbolic resolution. The lukewarm support of the resolution was more for symbolic support rather than actual solidarity with the building of student support — the passage of such resolution meant to quell any publicly perceived ill will. The majority of the Senate could not conceive being “fully committed to supporting the twLF strike, not only in words but action, because [they] recognize that efficacy over one’s own life is at issue, not specific bureaucratic demands.”
