The students on the campus of the University of California – Berkeley are making some intriguing plans for 2014.

Safeena Mecklai, Berkeley’s Associated Students – University of California (ASUC) external affairs vice president, shares the details that center on proposed redistricting and a student map that was approved in a Dec. 3 City Council vote.

The map the ASUC sponsored and endorsed, the Berkeley Student District Campaign map, takes District 7 and turns it into a student supermajority district, complete with 12,000 students — which is 86 percent of the new district. …

….Having been vetted at 17 citywide meetings since the campaign began in 2010, the ASUC’s map was the only remaining option that represented a viable choice based both on its policy merits and its broad coalition of support. After hearing public input and participating in spirited debate, an overwhelming majority voted to adopt the ASUC’s map over all others.

Despite this tremendous victory, some students are still being used as political pawns to try to undo the ASUC’s and the student body’s great work. ..

…[A]n extremely small group of opponents, who have not been involved in the process until this year, are attempting to undo this work simply to protect the narrow political interests of one council member. In their desperation to preserve a gerrymandered district, they are attempting to whip up support for a referendum — with which signatures from less than 5 percent of the city’s residents can force a vote to delay the implementation of new laws — on the City Council’s decision to partner with the ASUC and the student body to draw a student district. This strategy is risky and completely irresponsible. What these opponents fail to grasp is that if a referendum is filed and passed, the nation’s first student district would likely be abandoned. Should the referendum succeed, the City Council is under no obligation to replace it with a map with a new student district. The most likely outcome, in fact, is that Berkeley City Council will revert to a subpar compromise plan that could easily place students back at square one. Even worse, this strategy undermines the work the ASUC has done over the past three years to build consensus and negotiate with citywide stakeholders to prove that students are ready to take a seat at the table. Simply put, “it’s our way or the highway” is not a reasonable or mature strategy for governance.

If this outrages you as much as it outrages me; if you want to prevent political machinations from harming this great student achievement; if you find it absurd that students would sabotage their own hard-fought victory—the first student district in the country—then I ask you to not support a referendum.