OHLONE COLLEGE
THURSDAY
MONITOR
MAY 02, 2013 Vol. XLV No. 8
FREMONT, CA OHLONEMONITOR.COM
Ohlone combats hunger one can at a time SEE STORY PAGE 2
TAM DUONG / MONITOR
Social media escalates frightening trend LOUIS LAVENTURE News editor Suicide is never the answer. However, many adolescents in the world have taken their own lives seeing it as the only escape from a nightmare. Bullying has always been a part of the human lexicon, but more recently it has taken on a darker persona. The advents of the Internet and social media have added fuel to the fire forming a deadly concoction. A 15-year-old girl in Saratoga hanged herself after pictures of her taken
at a party where she passed out were circulated through various social media websites as well as text messages. Audrie Pott passed out after drinking at a party in September. Once the evidence started circulating, Pott found it too much to bear. She took her own life just eight days after the alleged rape took place. “She had no idea what occurred until the following morning when she woke up and had some drawing on her body in some private areas,” said Lauren Cerri, the Pott family attorney. Six months later, three
teenage boys have been arrested in the case. Two of the boys were fellow Saratoga High School students while the other attends a neighboring school. The names of the three boys charged in the case are being withheld because they are minors. The Pott family wanted people to know Audrie’s name and story as a cautionary tale for anybody else who might possibly go through something like this tragic event. Student Jessica Martinez advocates for tougher sentencing for rape, specifically concerning date rape and
cases involving minors. “I was drugged at a party when I was 14 years old and raped by some boys I went to school with,” Martinez said. “They were all subsequently found not guilty due to a lack of evidence. I vowed to make sure that I would fight for people so that these kinds of things are taken seriously.” A similar situation just unfolded in Steubenville, Ohio in August 2012 where an intoxicated girl was sexually assaulted by members of her high schools’ football team. However, the girl involved did not commit suicide; instead she turned to her
family to help her. In the Ohio case, Trent Mays, 17, and Ma’lik Richmond, 16, were both sentenced to at least one year in juvenile jail and could be held until they are 21-yearsold. Mays was sentenced to an additional year. Several people took pictures and videos of the girl and posted them. “You were your own accuser through the social media that you chose to publish your criminal conduct on. This does not define who my daughter is. She will persevere, grow and move on,” said the girl’s mother.
Weber, Zhang, Babu take top spots in ASOC elections FRANKIE ADDIEGO Staff writer The Associated Students of Ohlone College’s latest election ended in a race between two write-in candidates. Mat Weber won with a total of 90 votes while sitting president Sonia Patel, who gained 81 votes even though she said Spring 2013 is her last semester at Ohlone at a performance at Soul Surge. Weber was the emcee at the event held April 25. Perhaps better reflecting
the number of students who voted at ASOC’s election was Sen. Susan Lee, who earned 324 votes. Jiangnana Zhang will become the new treasurer of ASOC with 264 votes and Sonam Babu clenched the position of Newark Center representative with 401 votes. Prabhjot Kaur will replace Tawney Warren as the student member of the board of Trustees after gaining 248 votes. Several positions on the
ASOC remain unfilled. The positions of secretary, legislative rep and marketing and communications rep are vacant, as no student officially ran for any of these positions and no write-in candidate received more than 50 votes. According to the by-laws, a write-in candidate must achieve to be eligible for a position. “What happens is the council goes through their appointment process and appoints the empty posi-
tions,” said Debbie Trigg, one of two ASOC advisors. For the record, Shaira Tuazon received 42 votes for secretary to Sahizpreet Kaur’s 27. Rowan Sandhu received 27 votes to become ASOC’s legislative representative and Jessica Ceja-Nolasco gained 37 votes to become marketing and communications representative. This election marked Ohlone’s first use of Balloteer Online Voting, a program described as a “web-based
software system for building online voting ballots,” according to its website. “Students had the choice to vote on either of our campuses or remotely from their home or mobile computer systems,” said Trigg. “The process was extremely easy and we ran into no problems.” For students who voted in the cafeteria of the Fremont campus, ASOC provided donuts and orange juice to all the students who cast a ballot.