The United States Student Association (USSA), founded in 1947, bills itself as the oldest and largest student association in the United States. It has a historical and current commitment to diversity and breaking the barriers to educational access imposed by inequality and discrimination. It strives to build a movement that is representative of the diversity lacking in political institutions, and organize to alter the relations of power.
USSA was formed by a merger of the National Student Association (NSA) and the National Student Lobby (NSL); and it later absorbed the National Student Educational Fund (NSEF).
Its political activism was cited in a 1995 lawsuit concerning the University of Wisconsin's mandatory student fee. In University of Wisconsin v. Southworth 529 U.S. 217 (1999), the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the university's right to subsidize political speech with student fees.
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The student members of the United States Student Association work together with a vision for a just society in which generations of representative leaders understand their power and engage and empower diverse communities to create social change.
The United States Student Association, the country's oldest and largest national student-led organization, develops current and future leaders and amplifies the student voice at the local, state, and national levels by mobilizing grassroots power to win concrete victories on student issues.
The United States Student Association Foundation ensures the pipeline of effective student leadership by facilitating education, training and other development opportunities at national, state, and local levels in advocating for issues that affect students.
USSA believes that education is a right and should be accessible for any student regardless of their socio-economic background and identity. They believe people who are affected directly by issues of access to higher education should be the ones identifying the solutions that make education accessible to them. Therefore, USSA is dedicated to training, organizing, and developing a base of student leaders who are utilizing those skills to engage in expanding access to higher education and advancing the broader movement for social justice.
Several student governments and universities have dissolved their membership with USSA due to racial, gender, and sexual orientation discrimination within the organization's self-governing body. USSA currently holds a quota on their Board of Directors that mandates that "30 percent of the Board identify as openly queer." USSA also requires that "50%" of their Board of Directors be "people of color" and that "50%" of their Board of Directors be women. Many universities, such as the University of Oregon, have taken great offense to these racial, gender, and sexual orientation quotas and have garnered negative publicity for their affiliation with the organization.[1]
Regions:
Affiliations and coalitions:
USSA hires four full-time Association staff members and seven full-time Foundation staff members: