With Inauguration Day on Wednesday, ASU students are gearing up for the new Biden administration's first 100 days in office.
The incoming administration has said it will focus on a quick COVID-19 vaccine rollout, economic relief and rolling back some of President Donald Trump's previous immigration policies, and some students are looking for more focus on social and environmental justice policies, as well.
The Arizona Students' Association is a nonprofit run and led by students that does advocacy work for more affordable and accessible higher education in Arizona. ASA and five other student associations in the West sent a letter on Dec. 21 addressed to President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris about student priorities.
Cesar Aguilar, the executive director of ASA, said one of the main reasons six organizations, called Western Students Associations, decided to write the letter was in response to former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos' Title IX sexual assault regulations, which would streamline how sexual assault allegations are handled at a university level and give more rights to the accused.
ASA had helped the Obama administration to reform Title IX policies before the Trump administration rolled back these reforms.
"It was a disappointment because this was something that was led by young people," Aguilar said. "And so that's when we started the conversations."
The letter requested that the Biden administration would "make Title IX regulations stronger in a way that will support survivors and allow perpetrators to be punished fairly."
Armando Montero, the director of ASU affairs for ASA, spoke on the importance of strengthening Title IX.
"It's definitely something that we need to focus on not only here at a university level, but at a state and federal level, which is one issue that I think is very prevalent here at ASU," Montero said.
Montero, a sophomore triple majoring in political science, economics and mathematics, said that ASA wanted to emphasize the importance of equity in higher education in this letter.
Montero said he hopes the soon-to-be Democratic-controlled White House, House of Representatives and Senate focuses on equity in higher education when introducing legislation.
In the letter, seven requests were made by the organizations on behalf of students, including COVID-19 relief and canceling student debt.
With student loan debt reaching the $1.7 trillion mark in 2020, the issue has become an increasingly bigger problem in the U.S. In a press release, the ASA said it is requesting "the cancellation of $50,000 in student loan debt for household incomes under $100,000 and strengthening programs whose purpose is to protect student borrowers."
It has been proposed by Democratic leaders in the Senate that Biden should use executive orders to cancel up to $50,000 of student loans for borrowers who earn less than $125,000 a year.
ASA has been working on lowering or eliminating owed students loans, Aguilar said.
"Student loans were something we were talking about before we even reached the $1 trillion mark," Aguilar said. "We are starting to see the impacts that it has today — students are having harder times buying homes (and) their income to debt ratios are starting out really crazy because of the amount of student debt students are having."
The letter also calls for enrollment protections for undocumented students and non-resident students. This issue came to a head when the Trump administration tried to deport international students in July if they did not go to in-person classes due to COVID-19.
"That's not what America is about, that's not what our universities are about," Aguilar said. "That's something that we want to make sure does not happen again."
Outside of ASA, students such as Emily Sargent, a freshman studying nursing, are passionate about environmental policies and creating more equitable resources.
Sargent said she yearns for policies from the new administration that "support people of color and those (who are) struggling, like minorities, because I feel like there has been some neglect towards those people in the past administration."
Isabella Escobedo, a freshman studying biological sciences, expressed her hope for positive relations between the new administration and Indigenous people.
As a Spanish and Indigenous woman herself, Escobedo said "the first step to really trying to repair some of those relationships, as well as trying to write so many wrongs, whether it's honoring treaties (or) returning certain portions of the land."
Sargent also wants to see climate change policies put into action, such as rejoining the The Paris Agreement, which Biden has already said that he will rejoin.
"In this past administration, there's been a lot of neglect to climate issues and environmental issues," Sargent said. "I think that if we don't get our act together, it's not going to be good for future generations.”
Despite these policy hopes, Aguilar isn't sure what the future holds.
"I don't think anybody knows what to expect. But we are hoping that it's better than 2020," Aguilar said.
Reach the reporter at mcfisch4@asu.edu and follow @morgfisch on Twitter.
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Morgan Fischer is the politics editor, she works with her desk to cover topics related to politics in the ASU community. She has previously worked as an intern for RightThisMinute.
