UCSB student Ro’Shawndra Earvin (center), Chancellor Henry T. Yang, Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs Margaret Klawunn and Counseling and Psychological Services (C.A.P.S.) director Jeanne Stanford were present at the meeting. Jose Ochoa / Daily Nexus
Over 100 students spilled out of an administrative conference room Wednesday night, gathering for the second time in two years to demand that UC Santa Barbara administrators reform the university’s handling of sexual violence.
This time, the students presented 12 demands — reiterating several of the 13 points that Chancellor Yang signed off at a 13-hour sit-in on May 14, 2015. After nearly 9 hours of sit-in and discussion, Yang once again signed the students’ demands at approximately 4:00 a.m.
One year ago, students who conducted the sit-in claimed their demands had slipped through the cracks. They spoke with Chancellor Henry T. Yang, drafted another document, and began their process once more.
They returned in larger numbers on Wednesday evening, carrying an Associated Students Senate meeting to Cheadle Hall with a crowd mixed in ethnicity, gender and experience.
The demands ranged from infrastructure — more lighting on Slough Road, a Survivor Resource Center — to community agreements involving the UC Police Department, the Isla Vista Foot Patrol and UCSB Counseling and Psychological Services.
They also enlisted the newly-created I.V. Community Services District to create a “report card” for rape-related behavior and education in I.V. The data would include sexual violence statistics and community-led defensive campaigns.
A full list of demands can be viewed here:
A lead speaker at the sit-in, UCSB student Ro’Shawndra Earvin was allegedly raped in January in I.V. and contacted several authorities to report the incident. She claims the authorities did not respond to her claim because each said it was not in their jurisdiction.
In addition to the 9 demands, Earvin listed several “personal demands” to aid her and other survivors’ rehabilitation after experiencing sexual violence.
She wants the university to pay her tuition debt in full, transfer her to a different university for the Summer and Fall Quarters and allow her to check the progress that the university has made in handling cases of sexual violence.
Earvin said she will be graduating from UCSB after the summer and will continue to work with the university to improve the sexual assault policies on campus and throughout the UC.
“I’m not gonna stop there; I’m going to come back to this resource center and I’m going to make sure I visit other survivors and make sure this is a safe space,” Earvin said. “We need this to be our safe space.”
Yang sat at the table quietly acknowledging the survivor’s statements, saying the document carried each speaker’s pain in its words.
“Everything you said here is from very painful experience. You wrote it here so that’s why when we read it; as you’re talking, I read it again. [Its] meaning gets deeper and deeper,” Yang said.
The list of demands went through several drafts as third-year political science and Asian-American studies double major Akshaya Natarajan ran in and out of the room bringing new copies with each change.
Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs Margaret Klawunn said she believed the university only addressed some of the students’ concerns from 2015, which is why this year’s list looked different previous year’s lists.
“I think there’s some work that we did do on some of the things that came forward,” Klawunn said. “It’s clear that it wasn’t enough. Really clear that it wasn’t enough.”
At approximately 4 a.m. Thursday, Chancellor Yang and other administrators signed the list of demands, signifying their agreement with its terms. The list will now undergo consultation with the university’s Academic Senate.
Those participating in the negotiations joked that Earvin could now smile, and she responded saying she could now cry because she had found justice.
“Those tears gon’ come y’all. I’ve been waiting for y’all; I’ve been waiting to cry because I’ve been waiting for justice,” Earvin said.
Earvin said she felt proud and that she could now call her mother and comfort her with the idea that she found a solution where the justice system had “failed” her.
“I just want to feel like a survivor, and I swear I don’t feel like no fucking victim.”
Watch Part 1 of the sit-in here:
Watch Part 2 here:
Phi Do contributed reporting.
Updated 8:14 p.m.
Earvin sure sounds like a freeloader-she wants the university to pay off her student debt and transfer her to another campus even though she’s supposedly graduating soon. Safe spaces? Ridiculous. This is more of the nonsense that’s infuriating the voters. As Breitbart News put it in an unrelated story about CSU, Fresno, universities are viewed with disdain by conservatives. This sit-in is another example of why. It should be noted that the IV Foot Patrol is likely going to be shut down permanently over the summer as the county struggles with budget deficits. That’ll translate to less police protection unless… Read more »
She was raped in IV but doesn’t understand jurisdiction and got upset that UCPD wouldn’t handle a rape that occurred outside their jurisdiction.
SO stupid
I think the point is to extend UCPD jurisdiction to IV because IV Foot Patrol apparently will be cut soon.
That is something to be addressed if and when that happens but not before
UCSB should not have to pay to patrol IV and the mess that it is
Are you SERIOUS? Is it your opinion that UCSB has no responsibility for IV? Is it your opinion that the “mess that it is” has resulted in no way whatsoever from the decisions, judgments, actions, and lack of actions on the part of the University? Do you know ANYTHING about the history of that little community by the sea? Do you have even the slightest inkling about how Isla Vista came into being, or how it evolved into what it is today?
What about SBCC paying for anything? or the millions already contributed to IV by UCSB. Should UCSB also pay for Elwood policing too? It is the residents that make IV a mess not UCSB
UCPD jurisdiction does not NEED to be extended, because it already HAS jurisdiction in IV. As for the loss of Foot Patrol funding, this is the first I’m hearing of it. I’m a little doubtful about your prediction, but I can’t wait to see if it happens.
There was a news story in the Independent last week that the Foot Patrol is on the chopping block in the current proposed budget that the Board of Supervisors is discussing. The sheriff told the Board that he’s looking at millions in cuts. IV consumes a large proportion of Sheriff’s resources as compared to the rest of the county. So cuts would likely come out of IV.
How ignorant are you? The UCPD ALREADY HAS JURISDICTION IN ISLA VISTA! All UC Police Departments have jurisdiction within one square mile of their respective campuses. (I think it’s a square mile; I’m not absolutely certain of the exact distance, but I do know for a fact that the campus police have jurisdiction in I.V. At one time (if not currently), UC Police Officers participated as members of the Isla Vista Foot Patrol.
Not true at all. The sheriff’s have ultimate jurisdiction and UCPD only provides support. The Isla Vista Foot Patrol (IVFP) was initiated in 1970 in the interest of developing “community based policing” for the community of Isla Vista. The UCSB Police Department works with the Santa Barbara County Sherriff’s Department (SBSO) and the California Highway Patrol (CHP) to staff the IVFP. While the SBSO maintains primary jurisdiction and responsibility for Isla Vista, the UCSB Police Department and California Highway Patrol provide a supportive role in serving the special needs of a highly diverse community. The UCSB Police Department also serves… Read more »
Do you hear how stupid you sound? This woman, a student at UCSB was raped in IV where students live, but couldn’t get the proper help. UCSB has failed in more than one way to address the sexual assaults that happen on their campus and in IV. So a woman speaking up and demanding that her tuition be paid for after she was raped and given the runaround by the school she pays all this money to is not far off. You think that the worst thing going on at UCSB is this sit in? And THAT is why conservatives… Read more »
I don’t think tuition debt has anything to do with her rape though. Maybe the tuition debt for the following quarter that the rape has affected her, but making the university pay her in full just seems selfish and unreasonable. I’m a rape survivor as well, but I don’t feel like I should be compensated free college from it.
Agree. Demanding that her tuition debt be waived is out of bounds with what happened to her. There is no logic here.
Why make this a conservative liberal partisan issue? This woman is wrong in this case. The DA declined to press charges for insufficient information so then she complained that UCPD should handle it. They never declined to help the woman but UC is not in charge of prosecuting people and nor should it be
I didn’t make it a partisan issue. If you read the original comment, it was already mentioned. Thank you.
There’s a reason why her requests were met. Because the UC was in the wrong and they knew it.
Stop trying to minimize her complaints. It’s much larger than that.
Did none of you even watch the full discussion? Clearly not.
The demands are not realistic and like the last sit which had demand they will go nowhere. It was agreed to only to shut them up and get them to stop whining UCSB did nothing wrong off an alleged off campus rape isnt UCSB’s business if the DA wont press charges
UNIVERSITIES ARE NOT COURTHOUSES!
YOU CANNOT JUST PUT SOMEONE IN JAIL OR MAKE THEN UNABLE TO EARN THE DEGREE THEY PAID FOR BECAUSE YOU FEEL LIKE IT!
YOU CANNOT DEMAND AN ENTIRE EXTRA-JUDICIAL SYSTEM AND THEM COMPLAIN WHEN THE ADMINISTRATION HAS TO RAISE TUITION TO FUND IT.
Resources are good, but these students need to realize that an academic bureaucracy will never be able to deliver justice. They already don’t provide due process for he accused, and ruined countless student’s lives. We need the law to work, not have a school administration try and roleplay as the law. It will only result in disaster. Also, lmao about Earvin getting her debt payed off.
Ehhh, I don’t think I’m fully on her side. The alleged rape happened in IV, which is out of UCPD jurisdiction and is part of the SB Sheriff’s Dept jurisdiction. She filed a case with the district attorney but it was rejected because of insufficient evidence. Then she came to this sit-in and pretty much projected her denial on to the chancellor. Her argument was that she wasn’t supported enough, even tho the DA, who is the one person to handle criminal cases like this, rejected her case. I’m not saying whether it happened or didn’t, but that’s up to… Read more »
Evidence we dont need no stinking evidence when we can march and make demands of the UC.
While I think most of the students that participated have good intentions, I think that signing the document is mostly symbolic. In the document, harsher consequences are demanded for sexual attackers. The document does not reflect the difficulties that are often encountered in alleged sexual violence. Sex is (usually) a private act, which makes it difficult to prove cases in sexual violence, since there are most likely no witnesses. It is legally impossible to take action if there is no proof. So, in reality, these demands probably won’t change anything. Being a rape victim (I never understood the term ‘survivor’)… Read more »
Hahah so a girl is allegedly raped in IV and wants the university to pay for her tuition and transfer her to a new school? Talk about dramatic and freeloading
If she was even raped then she deserves justice but free tuition for the uni? You gotta be kidding me. Stupid entitled kid.
She wasn’t allegedly raped, she was raped. There is no need to try and invalidate her experience because you are upset that she asked to be cleared of her debts. If they pay her they pay her, and if they don’t they don’t. You may be upset with her request but in the end of the day she was raped.
There’s the rub. She claims she was raped but the DA declined to prosecute due to lack of evidence. That’s a strong indication that the alleged rape didn’t actually happen. Hence it’s appropriate to say “alleged.” Just because someone says something occurred doesn’t necessarily make it true.
Have you ever heard of Morgan Triplett?
I’ve been “raped” three times by predatory girls taking advantage of my highly inebriated state.
where’s my paid tuition?
What a joke! I would bet that the DA did not file the case because it lacked any merit and failed to show any evidence that a crime was committed. This happened off campus and yet the tuition and tax payers are supposed to come up with the money. That is an insult in so many ways and ridiculous logic. Just so no to these ignorant, spoiled brats and save us some money UCSB.
I can promise you that a woman in your family was raped. I can promise you that that woman was also not believed. I can promise you that someone told her that they weren’t going to press forward with her case because there wasnt enough evidence. I can promise you that that woman’s rapist is roaming about, with a high paying job, and a happy life. While that woman has to live with having been violated, and having to live without justice. The school paying her tuition was fair. To spend years at a University, collecting debt to get an… Read more »
A lot of promises and no facts. Off campus isnt the UC responsibility. You are a child there are adequate resources she was upset that UCPD wouldnt take up the case when the DA would press charges. IT BS