Emma Demorest / Daily Nexus
This morning, UC Santa Barbara’s A.S. formally resolved to rename GauchoSpace — UC Santa Barbara’s flagship online university — to, simply, “Space.” The move comes after the once beloved Argentinian cowboy/mascot’s fall from grace and weeks of student protest against the university’s continuing use of Joe Gaucho’s name and racially undertoned likeness.
Students demonstrated against the website by continuing to use it normally, which repeatedly caused the site to slow and crash at inconvenient times. One student described the protests as a “carefully coordinated attack,” consisting of over two hundered students clicking on a link entitled “2014 midterm.doc.pdf.” Lecturer Eksa Hausted noted that the protests were “remarkably effective.”
“Every time GauchoSpace — uh, I mean, Space — went down, I received one, maybe two hundred emails explaining that last week’s paper was late because the website was down for three minutes today. The university must have spent several, if not dozens of, dollars paying me overtime to clear those emails. The financial pressure alone surely forced their hand,” explained Hausted.
However, support for the demonstrations was not unanimous. One local student, John Gauchon’t, called in to condemn the protests.
“My fellow students don’t speak for all proud UCSB Gauchos — a thing we really call ourselves. Joe Gaucho did nothing wrong, and even if he did (which he didn’t), he is definitely really, really sorry.”
Justified or not, the protests had their intended effects. In a statement earlier today, Chancellor Yang distanced the university from Joe Gaucho.
“Joe Gaucho no longer represents the University of California, Santa Barbara, or the values which we hold dear. As such, we will be removing the Gaucho name from UCSB facilities, web interfaces and organizations. To dispel any confusion, until a replacement is found, the Gaucho name will simply be removed. For example, GauchoSpace will become ‘Space,’ and varsity athletic teams (formerly known as the UCSB Gauchos) will be known as the ‘UCSB s.’ In addition, the university will be redirecting all of the Gaucho family’s philanthropic contributions to benefit the beloved CSOs that do so much to protect our community.”
The chancellor did not stay to respond to questions.
This is a developing story. This article will continue to change, and some details may later be revealed to be complete lies.
Varun Iyer is in no way being bribed by the cute cartoon raccoon that should definitely replace Joe Gaucho.
