Note: The views expressed in this interview do not necessarily reflect the views of the Bruin Political Review, and the publication of this interview does not constitute an endorsement for the candidate. Vote through MyUCLA between May 10th and May 17th.

Bruin Political Review (BPR): Why are you running for president?

Tajvir Singh: Honestly, I’m in my third year here at UCLA, and I've seen how our student government has been, I've seen how our campus has been, I see how students feel, and the verdict isn't great. That's why I'm running because I feel there are multiple areas in which student government can improve. But I talked to students, students who are involved in student government, students who aren't involved in student government, and they tell me the problems that they see across the various aspects of student government and how it can be improved. And so I figured I'm someone who's always been about public service, by government, by law. Student Government has always interested me because I feel like I'm in a position where I can see the grievances I hear from other people and articulate solutions, and hopefully become elected. Hopefully, we can actualize those positions, because I love UCLA. And I think every student should love UCLA. And I always want to see it get better. Who doesn't? That's a big reason why I am running. I just want to improve UCLA for all students.

BPR: Do you have a personal connection to not only student government, but also advocacy or service? Is this something that's really important to you?

Tajvir Singh: In high school, I was a junior class vice president, I was president of National Honor Society, and a bunch of other leadership roles, and a lot of other clubs. I believe it is very important to be able to interact freely with institutions, especially academic institutions, as a student because we can do a lot of stuff as students. It's also important to interact with those certain people up there at the top, and represent your peers and your colleagues in government. At UCLA, I'm the captain of the Debate Union, which has allowed me to take a leadership role. I think that has an impact on how I am able to speak with other people, how to argue, and plan the events. To summarize, I've always been interested in that kind of stuff. And honestly, I really hope to do it in the future.

BPR: What have you seen in the past two years from the USAC Presidents? And how do you think you would differentiate yourself from them?

Tajvir Singh: I think, in the last few years, what I see with elections, what I see with candidates, is there's a lot of unnecessary drama, especially during election time, between these candidates. A lot of it is over things that I don't think are at the core interests of the students. I think a lot of it is not as important as a lot of people make it out to be. The reason why this is so important to recognize is that it takes the oxygen out of issues that we should actually be discussing, because we're too busy discussing no personal foibles or spats between people. And I think that has characterized student government as long as I've been here. I'm sure if I talk to someone from the class of 2014, they'd say the exact same thing as me. And I don't want to sit here and believe that it's fundamental to Student Government. I really don't believe that. That’s part of why I am running because I think that's a culture that we can change in student government, not just in elections, but also during governing periods.There's plenty of dramas and scandals, which I think is totally nonsense. Regardless, I think a lot of the Presidents while I've been here have done some good things in terms of being front-facing in terms of interacting with the public. But I think they can be a lot better in that regard. What I've noticed is that a lot of these candidates come from certain clubs that come from certain parts of the community. And what I've noticed is that while they're president, they continue to cater to that group or to that interest. And it's not to say that interest shouldn't be served or shouldn't be supported. What I've noticed is a lot of their time, a lot of their management, a lot of the capital goes to those groups, and they put the rest of the student body on the wayside. So as president, two things I want to do is, I want to say, one, we're going to ensure that every student is going to be heard and every student's going to be respected. But, two, I want to be a lot more front-facing and I want to be a lot more active. I want my voice to be out there and all my positions to be out there. If there's something happening on campus, the president should have an opinion on it. For example, look what's happening right now with the encampments, right? I haven't seen anything from the USAC president on that. Maybe there's going to be something that just happened this morning. But those certain things, you just need to be more public. You're the president of Student Government. They elected you. You shouldn't be in your office. You shouldn't be behind the shadows. You should be out there, publicly voicing your opinion. I don't even care if I strongly disagree with your opinion, you just need to be front-facing for the students. I think that's what makes a president different from Student Wellness Commissioner, or any other positions. You are the face of student government. I hope in the future, the role changes where the President is a lot more public and front-facing.

BPR: On a related note, in terms of how USAC stands today, I read that much of what you are running on is trust. And you said you wanted to reestablish trust in USAC. Why do you feel the student body does not trust USAC? And how do you plan to establish trust?

Tajvir Singh: A lot of it are the reasons I just mentioned. I think first and foremost is the lack of attention to the issues that really matter to UCLA students, as opposed to this focus on drama scandals or personal disputes between members of USAC. That's one. Second, there’s another issue with focusing on the interests of certain issues that aren't as important and aren't as tangible for a lot of students. People see the issues that are happening. For example, they see that the value of their swipes are being degraded at Ackermann Union, and they see that the hill is still not pre-COVID levels, they see  that student fees are still going up. They also see that the student government isn't doing anything about that, or at the very least, isn't even trying to do something about that. When students see issues that the majority of them care about and are within their core interests—when it comes to their fees, when it comes to their rights, when it comes to fitness—it matters to them. And it's affecting them on a day to day level. And they see that the student government is not addressing that. That does create a culture of distrust, and I think it's actually totally justified. A big reason as to why I think I can rejuvenate that trust is because one, I'm advocating for a policy platform that I think appeals to all Bruins. But second, and more importantly, is that I want to be the voice for people who feel like their voice hasn't been heard. You need someone who has an outsider way of viewing USAC and Student Government, someone who's not beholden to a certain group of people or anything like that. You need someone like that to get in there and say, “Hey, this is how we're going to do it. We're going to represent the views of the students, not of XYZ group, but everybody.” I think students see that. And they have been seeing that. And that's why they're very dissatisfied with what's been going on with student government. Hopefully that changes this year.

BPR: I want to touch on something similar, in terms of accountability. Obviously, trust and accountability go hand in hand, but is there anything else you'd like to add to the state of accountability in USAC?

Tajvir Singh: I mean, USAC is not at all accountable. One thing that my platform addresses is having a direct line to the president's office. It's a very simple idea, but actually very powerful in the sense that if you want to reach out to your student representatives directly, it is a bureaucracy. It's a system of apparatuses, you have to weave through, it's a labyrinth of things that just are not pleasant to have to go through. You shouldn't have to go through all of this to just communicate with your student representatives. I think it should be very easy, very straightforward. Emails are great. We all love emails, but calling and leaving voicemails, that's actually the best way to actualize policy. I actually interned for Congressman Mike Garcia up in the Santa Clarita Valley in Los Angeles. He had a policy that if you call his office and he picks up, you can leave a concern, you leave a question, and they address it. If he doesn't pick up, he guarantees a call back. That's something we need to incorporate into the USAC President’s office. We will establish a direct line to the president's office, and we will have someone there always operating the phones. It could even be me. If I'm free, I'll take a call. And if we don't pick up, leave a message, and we'll call you back. And not only that, I wasn't actually able to put this in my candidate statement because they have character limits. But I also want to have a guaranteed meeting policy. If you want to meet your student representative, you should be able to meet them. Students can set a time, maybe this can't happen tomorrow, but it can happen at a certain time. You get to meet your representative. That's the best way to forward ideas for the interest of the student body because I feel like if you care enough to call a USAC president, if you care enough to want to meet with them, I think it's worth hearing, regardless of what it is. And I think something like that is necessary to inject that culture of accountability. That's something I think should happen because at the end of the day, you're not the students’ boss, you are their employee. You answer to them, not the other way around. And I think that's fundamental. That connection has just been destroyed in the last couple years. And I want to bring it back.

BPR: Next, I wanted to ask a few questions on leadership. At the end of the day, everyone may have decent policies, but people are voting for a person they trust and that has leadership skills. Can you expand on some other experiences at UCLA that you've had in terms of leadership or anything that you feel could intangibly contribute to making you a good President?

Tajvir Singh: I think Debate is a very important one, mostly because of how you're supposed to interact with other people. Debaters are very argumentative, very wanting to discuss. When you're the leader, you have to reconcile a lot of different arguments because people have all sorts of views on things. I think that's important to have as a leader. Two things: one, the ability to negotiate and compromise, but also being adamant in your beliefs in the first place. I think politics and government is a matter of negotiating and compromising. I think that's important. Some things you’ve got to pick your battles, but other things you've got to be adamant about, you've got to fight for it. And you've got to win over hearts and minds. I think my leadership position in debate has helped me with that. I also have, as I said, served as an intern for Congressman Mike Garcia, up in Santa Clarita Valley, which was important for constituent representation, how to interact with students. I was also an intern for the Orange County District Attorney's Office in Santa Ana public affairs unit. That was really important because it taught you the importance of outreach and being front-facing as a public institution and how you're supposed to interact with people. In that position, I think what was important was communication. I think what's important with leadership is being constantly communicative, being open, and being transparent. And I think that position taught me the importance of doing that as a public figure. As USAC president, what I think all those leadership positions have taught me is, one, you've got to stand up for what you believe in and, two, compromise when necessary, because at the end of the day, you want the best policy outcome for all students. And third, be communicative, be transparent. That's what being a leader is about. You need to be accountable, because you're going to make mistakes, and it is important to own up to those mistakes and say, “Hey, this is what I did wrong. Here's what I'm going to do to make things better.” As a president, what's going to differentiate me from a lot of other candidates is, I'm a big believer in changing people's hearts and minds. I like to convince people, to argue with people. That's why I'm the Captain of the Debate team. I want to speak with other USAC members, with administrative officials, with any members of relevant entities, to try to come up with the best solution to different issues. That's the point of a leader. You’ve got to wrestle with some arms a little bit. You've got to do all these sorts of things to ensure that what you want is representative. I think if elected, I would 100% fight for their interests, because that's what you’ve got to do as a leader. You got to be a fighter.

BPR: Also, I was wondering if you could tell me about your background and life outside of UCLA? Was there anything in your childhood, upbringing, or anything else that made you become a person that would want to advocate for and lead a group of people?

Tajvir Singh: I'm from Dallas, Texas, and McKinney suburb, just north of Dallas and Collin County. I’ve been there since I was a little kid. I was actually born in Oklahoma. Not many people are, but I am. And I've been in Texas since I was a little kid. And during that time, my parents, both immigrants who came here from India in the 1980s, taught me a lot of great values. I was raised in a good environment. When I was a kid, I was not always interested in government politics up until maybe middle school, which was around the 2016 election. That's where I really started becoming captivated. During that time, in high school and middle school, I took leadership positions: Student Council, class Council, National Honor Society, debate, political activist clubs. That is what really drew my interest in it. I really wanted to learn more. I really wanted to be a part of that deliberative process, actualizing changes, working with relevant people to discuss what we can do for students or for our groups. That was really foundational in shaping who I am today. Now being in college, I know I still want to do that later in my life.

BPR: Next, I want to talk about your platform. You use FIRE as your campaign? Can you describe the focus of FIRE and some of its main ideas?

Tajvir Singh: When you look at FIRE, I think it's a bit of a double entendre in the sense that USAC and UCLA have been through a winter of discontent. We need a little bit of heat, a little bit of fire to USAC. Because right now, what we have is not working. We need to ignite some change, we need to do something to truly make the wheels turn a little bit. But second is we’ve got to fire USAC in the sense that we got to terminate them. What they've been doing has not been great. What they've been doing is not up to par. When people are not up to par, well, you fire them. If they're good people, that's great. At the end of the day, it's about the tasks you do and the outcomes you produce. And quite frankly, it is not congruent with what students demand. So they need to be fired. And that's why I'm running on a fire platform. I believe that we need to ignite some change. We need to get rid of the membership we have now. We need new leadership, we need fresh blood, we need someone with a new perspective, who's got dynamic ideas, which I believe I have. And that's how we're going to get change across. I think a lot of students feel that way. It is, however, a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy because USAC may receive messages that student government is horrible, but then students don't vote. Then it produces the individuals or produces a system that they criticize, which causes them not to vote in the first place. I think this could be a great way to break that rut, break that cycle. We have a potential to change things, we have a potential to do things that haven't been done before. Let's vote, let's get in somebody, let's get a lot out. I've seen a lot of other candidates, not just for President, where they have great ideas. Let's get those people in government. Let's actually start to change. That's what FIRE is all about.

BPR: As a part of FIRE, you describe the fee system at UCLA a lot. Can you give examples of some of the current failings of the fee system at UCLA? And how do you plan to convince UCLA to reduce certain fees?

Tajvir Singh: When it comes to student fees, there’s quite a few issues. One fee is the Wooden Center fee. It's going to shut down for at least two years, starting next year, due to seismic restructuring, in October. I think it's pretty unheard of to have UCLA students pay a Wooden fee, especially since we're already paying a seismic restructuring fee. So why would we pay an additional wooden fee? That's one thing I'm gonna suspend automatically. I think that's common sense. Second is we've got a USAC fee that we pay every quarter, I think it's about $7. It's currently opt out. I think we should make that opt in. You shouldn't have to opt out, especially since a lot of people don't even know about the fact that you can opt out of it. I think if we can't even opt out of it, let's make it much more transparent so that people know they have to have that option. But I think we should just make it an opt in system. If you think the student government deserves an extra $7, feel free to do that. In terms of student fees going up, compared to where I was my freshman year, I think they've gone up thousands of dollars—a lot of that is because they adjust for inflation. But I think a lot of the time, the amount they've increased does not justify the amount of increase we've seen in other parts of the country and parts of our school. At the end of the day, we've got to deal with higher costs. So I think it's unfair that student fees have gone up by this catastrophic amount. We're still struggling to pay for a lot of other things. When I refer to these different types of fees, people respond with “Oh, well, you know, that's not that much money. You can just pay a little extra.”

There's two problems with that. They've been saying that for the last couple of decades. Now that's added up to thousands of dollars. We need to start somewhere. Alternatively, let's say that's not the case. Instead, fees may have gone up a couple hundred dollars. Still, that adds up, especially for lower income students. That can be the difference in whether or not you fill up your tank, that can be the difference in whether you can pay your monthly rent or whether or not you buy school supplies or textbooks for your classes. That makes a huge difference for a lot of students. I think it's important we get rid of these fees. They're not going to have a negative impact on the general funding or the general operations of student government too. I think we have a lot of this money that we can spend on stuff, we've got surpluses. Let's use that to invest in students and put more money in their pockets so they can spend it on what they think is more valuable to them.

And when it comes to this issue of fee reduction, I also want the student fee Advisory Board to go through all these fees to allow students to look at the fees and examine the utility of each fee. We can then determine which ones, if any, should be on the chopping block and make that report transparent and make it public, so everyone should be able to view it. I looked at their meeting minutes. From what I saw, they haven't published their meeting minutes since 2022. It has been two years. I don't know if they have just forgotten to do that, which is already an indictment on their ability to do their job well, or they just haven't met at all. Either way, it's wrong. We need to ensure that organization can benefit students. More importantly, I'm just not going to raise any student fees. That's pretty straightforward. If we're going to pay for something, either we take it from somewhere else, or we get the administration to help us out. They've done that before, they can do it again. That's what fee reduction is all about. Putting more money in the pocket of Bruins and ensuring that we entrust them with responsibility over their own money.

BPR: I also want to talk about students rights, which you seem to have a focus on. Could you expand on some of the other rights that you believe students are lacking or could be improved at UCLA? 

Tajvir Singh: The focus is around the right to protest, freedom of expression, assembly, and speech. That's fundamental to not just college campuses, but to this country. We've got to have that right, because that's what differs us from a lot of other places. We have the ability to voice our opinion on perceived injustices or wrongdoings. What we're seeing now is an unprecedented attack on that across college campuses in the country. If I'm being honest, UCLA is not as bad as it could get. There's other campuses that 100% are far worse. But two things. I think, one, they don't have a good track record. Second, there's no reason to indicate it can't get any worse.

When it comes to rights, we've got the encampment that's going on. It started this morning. Who knows what's going to happen with that in the future. I'm praying, nothing bad happens. But I don't have that much trust in administrative officials. We've got UC Regents wanting to curtail academic freedom by saying no more political speech on academic departments, something that has been long standing for decades, if not centuries. They want to scrap it only because of this conflict in Israel and Palestine. They believe that expressing solidarity with Palestinians is somehow anti-semitic or a wrong thing to do. That's something we've got to oppose. Also, we need to preserve the ability for students to express their opinions without any fear.

Freedom of speech is a principle. There's two things that come with it. One, is how institutions manage it, with reference to the policies we pass. Second is inculcating an environment that makes it so that you can express your opinion without any backlash. And that one is a lot less tangible, and you're not able to really measure it. The way that works is ensuring that the USAC Student Government, the administration, have dialogue, have statements to ensure they protect freedom of speech. For example, with Palestinian protests we're seeing on campus, there have been external groups that are telling people that have expressed solidarity with Palestinian protesters that they should be suppressed, that they should be punished based on the Student Code of Conduct for being anti-semitic. That's something that the administration has to resist. As Student Government President, I want to resist, we shouldn't let external groups bully Bruins for wanting to express their freedom of speech. Furthermore, we've got to reject these notions that voicing your opinion on this Palestinian issue makes you hateful or anti semitic. Of course, there are real instances of that. I'm not going to deny that. But the vast majority of the protesters we see not at UCLA, but at Columbia, Yale and UT Austin, are not expressing anti-semitic positions. What they're expressing is opposition to a genocide that is happening in this world. So I think what we want is people to resist administrative efforts to curtail speech. I think the President, as the leader of the Student Government, as the voice of students should be at the forefront of resistance. I think that's the best way we can mobilize pressure and resistance against them. Second is we've got to work with the administration. We've got to work with the student government to ensure that students feel like they're in an environment where they can voice their speech, because chilling speech is arguably just as bad as passing a policy restricting speech, because the outcome is the same. You're not going to be able to voice your opinion you want because you think there might be retribution. That fear I want to totally get rid of as President. I think that's what student rights are about outside of assembly, protests.

This applies to academics as well. The Ombudsman that we have, which is a group that's meant to adjudicate these issues between professors and students, is totally lacking. They haven't done a good job, they're not receptive to student needs. As a result, I also want USAC to establish a Student Bill of Rights. I want to make this process under the jurisdiction of your USAC, because if professors do something to you that you perceive as an injustice, we can't really do much about it. You are kind of on your own to resolve it. This takes too much time. By the time it's resolved, you might already have graduated, or you might already be applying for things where your grades matter.

So I want recourse not even just with academics, the recourse for any campus entity, campus administration. I want the Student Bill of Rights to enshrine that system of recourse that we can allow in student government so that even if we aren't the final arbiters in terms of determining what happens, we at least give you a voice. We at least give you a platform where you can voice your grievances. That can mobilize effective change. I think the Student Bill of Rights means just that. I want this process to be collaborative. I want student groups to be part of it. I want everyone to be part of it. There's certainly some things that I’m missing saying right now. That is why I want it to be a collaborative drafting process. I want everyone to be a part of it. I want everyone to say this is what we need. This will be good for students. I think that's necessary to ensure that we have a long lasting document that can help secure the rights of students.

BPR: For the last 30 seconds, I’d like to give you the opportunity to address anything that you want to emphasize or have not said yet.

Tajvir Singh: Here's what I'll say. I'm running a campaign. All these other candidates are good people. I think they've got experience. But I think fundamentally, when it comes to changing the dynamics of student government, ensuring policy outcomes that are commensurate with the amount of resources students put into Student Government, I'm the only one talking about it. I'm the only one calling out specific entities. I'm the only one saying “Hey, here's the solution to how we do it.” And I think I'm the only one that's talking about tangibles that affect a student's day to day lives, whether that be through student fees, through the John Wooden center, through your right to protest or through the clubs that you go to every week. For those reasons, I'm in a unique position, not only because of the policy platforms I have, but for the vision I have for UCLA. We are a great school and we can be even greater and that's why I wish to be elected USAC President.