The Undergraduate Council voted to pass legislation initiating a student-based campaign to advocate for the creation of a multicultural center at Harvard, as well as legislation to launch a program to disperse water filters to students during a Sunday meeting.
The first act establishes a UC effort which expands on the body’s past advocacy for a multicultural center at Harvard, which in turn built upon five decades of student efforts.
“The student body has been in deep advocacy of a space to convene and appreciate shared identities,” the legislation reads.
The text of the legislation cites other peer institutions that have made similar centers that students met with “great excitement.”
Sikhs and Companions of Harvard hosted a vigil Sunday night to honor the victims of the recent mass shooting at a FedEx warehouse in Indianapolis, in which four of the eight victims of the attack were Sikh.
Eighteen other organizations from both Harvard and Wellesley College cosponsored the vigil, and more than 90 people attended virtually.
Though the organizers acknowledged officials have yet to determine whether the attack was a hate crime, they said it was nonetheless important to honor the lives lost.
âWe demand the police investigate the role of bias,â SACH member Tarina K. Ahuja â24 said at the start of the vigil. âBut meanwhile, we don t need a hate crime classification in order to grieve with the families, the Sikh community.â
The Undergraduate Council endorsed an all-Ivy League statement on mental health and allocated funds toward a project supporting transgender and gender non-conforming students in purchasing gender-affirming clothing at its regular meeting Sunday.
The first piece of legislation allows the Council to sign onto an all-Ivy League mental health statement that calls for BIPOC mental health care, active âcompâ oversight, increased counseling services, and leave of absence policy reform.
âMental health is the 2nd leading cause of death among students and 75% of lifetime cases of mental health conditions begin by age 24,â the statement reads.
The statement also details that no Ivy League university scored above a D+ on the Ruderman Foundation scale, which measures university effectiveness in responding to students experiencing mental illness.
The Undergraduate Council passed legislation Sunday endorsing a petition calling on Harvard administrators and the Universityâs Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute to âdenounce the detention and repressionâ of protesters in India under Prime Minister Narendra D. Modiâs administration.
The act, sponsored by Ivy Yard Representative Tarina K. Ahuja â24, passed by a vote of 22-0-4.
Tens of thousands of Indian farmers have gathered for more than three months in New Delhi to protest new agriculture laws that they say undermine their livelihoods, according to NPR. The laws are currently on hold, but the government has cracked down on the protests with internet censorship and arrests.