Student Government Association Senator Claire Avalos became the first to announce her bid for the SGA vice presidency Thursday.
Avalos, a sophomore studying political science, said if elected she’ll work to increase funding for multicultural student organizations, expand free speech protections for students and push officials to remove the permanent fences they installed around University Yard following last spring’s pro-Palestinian encampment. She said her leadership experience in the SGA and membership in both the Organization of Latin American Students and the Cisneros Hispanic Leadership Institute demonstrates her passion for diversity, which she said makes her an ideal candidate to represent the student body as SGA vice president.
“I’m not willing to back down or take no for an answer, and I feel like that’s a really important quality to have in a leader, especially as vice president who oversees the senate and who oversees the legislative budget office and all the funding for orgs on campus,” Avalos said.
Avalos said as a Latina woman she has felt underrepresented in the SGA Senate, citing an overall lack of diversity in the body. She said this year she has worked as an SGA senator to boost diversity and inclusion efforts for fellow Latino students by helping organize a town hall for community members to talk with SGA representatives during Hispanic Heritage Month in September.
“I felt admittedly intimidated at first by the idea of being vice president, the responsibility of never seeing myself reflected in those types of roles,” Avalos said. “But as an advocate within SGA and my time as senator, I felt like this would be a great opportunity to continue to advocate for students.”
Avalos said she’ll advocate for an increased proportion of the annual SGA budget to go toward multicultural student organizations by encouraging students to submit requests through the University-Wide Program Fund, a funding allocation process that student organizations can use for school-wide and multicultural events. She said funding is a “tangible change” that can benefit students of color and other underrepresented communities by supporting their events on campus.
“GW is a predominantly white institution, and there has been that lack of understanding that some of these clubs may need more funding than they are given and may be sometimes overlooked,” Avalos said.
Avalos said her platform heavily focuses on expanding free speech protections for students by bringing student organizations’ representatives into conversations with officials about University policy decisions. She said students have shared their upset about the lack of student inclusion in administrative decision-making processes.
She said the disciplinary action the University took toward pro-Palestinian protesters during last year’s encampment has driven her advocacy for free speech protections for students.
Avalos sponsored an SGA Senate resolution last year to issue an Instagram statement to support students’ rights to free speech and condemn officials’ decision to discipline demonstrators at the pro-Palestinian encampment in U-Yard. She said she’ll continue to advocate for “stronger” free speech protections to ensure students have the right to organize without fear of retaliation from the University.
Avalos said she wants officials to take down the fences officials installed in U-Yard in December, citing complaints she has heard from students who said they do not find the fences necessary for their safety.
“Frankly, I think it’s just a reminder of the University’s unwillingness to actually work with students, and to be able to collaborate with them,” Avalos said. “It’s just a constant reminder of them disregarding students.”
Avalos has collected the needed 379 signatures and has been verified by the Joint Elections Commission to appear on the official SGA election ballot on April 10 and 11.
