The Undergraduate Student Government senate confirmed the 2025-26 advocacy liaisons for each programming assembly and the co-executive director for the Student Assembly for Gender Empowerment at a senate meeting over Zoom on June 17. 

The confirmed advocacy liaisons are:

• Jashan Grewal for the Asian Pacific American Student Assembly
• Tinsae Yimer for the Black Student Assembly
• Mia Moore-Walker for the Environmental Student Assembly
• Jieen Chen for the First Generation Student Assembly
• Peggy Wu for the International Student Assembly
• Tehya Romero for the Joint Assembly for Military-Associated Students
• Kiana Amaya for the Latine Student Assembly
• Layan Alasseel for the Middle Eastern North African Student Assembly
• Rheannon Abeyta for the Native American Student Assembly
• Ivana Rauda Gaona for the Queer and Ally Student Assembly

Some advocacy liaisons have previous experience in USG: Grewal as a senate aide, Moore-Walker as director of advocacy for ESA, Chen as a chief diversity officer aide, Wu as an ISA intern and Amaya as a previous advocacy liaison and co-executive director for LSA.

Senator Dakota Driemeyer voted against the motion to approve the liaisons, writing in a prepared statement posted into the Zoom chat that he would like to see more of a gender balance among the all-female advocacy liaisons because the executive cabinet is all female — comprising seven members — and the 12-person senate has just one female member. Driemeyer was not present at Tuesday’s virtual meeting.

“There is now a gender imbalance that is NOT representative of the student body,” Driemeyer wrote. “While I love strong women, I find it hard to believe we could not hire a single male for these roles of advocacy liaisons.”

In response, chief diversity officer Yasmeen ElFarra said programming assemblies nominate the advocacy liaisons that they believe will best represent their community and that the senate’s role in the process is only for appointment and confirmation.

“The idea of rejecting qualified candidates on the basis of gender to maintain a supposed balance would be, in my belief, both inappropriate and contrary to our commitment to equity and fairness in the organization,” ElFarra said.  

Senators also approved Yin Qiao Zhang as the co-executive director for SAGE. The senate approved the other co-executive director position on April 30.

During the meeting, the senate also approved senate bill 145-02, the 2025-26 USG office policy manual, which was mostly unchanged from the 2024-25 version. President Mikaela Bautista said chief of staff Karen Borglund modified dates, structure and clarity within the manual.

On June 12, USG released a statement on its Instagram page addressing the recent Los Angeles protests prompted by ICE raids and federal enforcement actions, expressing its commitment to represent all students regardless of their legal status because “every individual student plays a key role in shaping [USC].” 

“To our undocumented students, immigrant students, international students, and their families: we’re thinking of you during these challenging times and we hope everyone is staying safe,” the statement read.

It also provided a short list of on campus and external resources for undocumented, immigrant and international students such as the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, the California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice and the USC Gould Immigrant Legal Assistance Center.