Tulane University students:

In its six-year history, the Tulane Progressive Voter Coalition has served as a platform for Multicultural Council, Gender and Sexual Affairs Council, and other organizations to exercise collective voice in an election process that ceaselessly seeks to keep their voices from being heard. 

This year, the PVC has endorsed candidates for USG Executive Board that we believe have the strongest commitment to uplifting marginalized voices and creating a more inclusive, healthy, sustainable, and equitable Tulane. The PVC has voted to endorse Deja Wells for President of the 2020-2021 Undergraduate Student Government. We have also voted to endorse and support Reagan McKinney and Jamie Roa who are running unopposed in this year’s Executive Board elections. 

In the interest of full transparency with the student body, we would also like to state that the PVC did not consider Adolfo Garcia for endorsement because of factual inconsistencies identified in his campaign statements. Mentioned both during the debate on Tuesday and his campaign website, Fo stated that he “launched the diversity fellows” and “established free, unlimited STI testing.” Although Garcia currently works as a diversity fellow and was involved in the push for unlimited STI testing, upon investigation, two Tulane faculty members stated that both of these initiatives were started by either themselves or another staff member and we considered this discrepancy enough to disqualify him as eligible for endorsement. Further evidence denoting this will be attached in images at the end of this document.

In making endorsements, the PVC created standards on which our decisions would be based. 

Ideally, endorsed candidates should uphold and prioritize: 

• LGBTQ+ Life 
• Racial Competency 
• Economically Disadvantaged Students 
• Women Students 
• Sexual Violence 
• Historical Structures of Racism on Campus 
• Environmental Sustainability 
• Mental Health 
• Engagement 

The PVC finalized endorsements based on whether or not candidates met a majority of these standards. Not all candidates met the provided criteria, but the PVC has provided this list in order to support those who have met some or most of them. 

Candidates also had the opportunity to answer written questions submitted by PVC organizations. Their answers will be published in The Hullabaloo. Based on these answers, the presentations of each candidate at the Student Forum on Tuesday, and the responses of each candidate to the questions asked by the PVC at the Student Forum, representatives from each PVC organization discussed and came to a consensus regarding the above endorsements. 

The following student organizations are part of the 2020 Progressive Voter Coalition: 

Asian American Student Union (AASU)

Finding Intersectionality Together (FIT)

Muslim Students Association (MSA)

Tulane College Democrats

This article has been updated from a previous version with clarifying language to explain Garcia’s involvement in the named initiatives.