The best advice I recently heard for achieving success is to “sit at the table” everywhere you are present. You cannot be expected to have your voice heard if you take a back seat to those making the decisions.

Before you roll your eyes at what might appear to be another column about becoming engaged on campus and “making your voice heard,” read ahead. On Saturday, we as students have a golden opportunity to stand up to an “institution” which has absolutely no basis.

Decisions about block – excuse me, student organization – seating have been made despotically, and regulations have been circumvented in order to preserve a social order that regrettably continues to exist on this campus.

Some may dupe you into thinking they deserve special privileges because of organizations they have chosen to belong to, but I urge you to remind them that when their Action Card is scanned on Saturday, it shows no special distinction other than “student.”

Every student ticket holds the same monetary value. We all paid five dollars. There is no club level, no box seating and no all-you-can-eat-and-drink seats in the student section.

We may all have different affiliations outside of the stadium, but there is only one affiliation that matters inside – being a student at this University.

By virtue of that affiliation, we are entitled to the opportunity to join together with 100,000 of our closest friends to put our hope in something that transcends prior experience. We are also entitled to sit wherever we choose.

So please, do not be intimidated by blue-blazered banner holders who may try to wield a seat-saving power they do not have. If someone tells you to move, stand your ground. There are no rules on the books that support block seating as a practice. If they force the issue, force right back.

There is always an administrator present who has knowledge of the regulations for seating, or lack thereof.  This entire dispute can be settled without investigative reporting and committee meetings if students simply sit at the table and refuse to be removed by those who have arbitrarily corrupted the most unifying thing on this campus.

Lisa Elizondo is a senior majoring in American Studies.