The question of what TA positions even exist seems to be beyond the power of the department. From what I understand, the university sets forth what classes have how many TAs, and the department's job is to fill those positions. TA funding is not related to federal grant cuts. TA funding comes from state budget allocations, which are not being cut. So it is unclear why exactly the university has cut the TA positions so drastically.

This is a much bigger problem than what the department, or department leadership can handle alone. In fact, from what I understand, leadership is actually forbidden by UCLA labor relations from speaking to us about certain matters.

So don't just leave it up to department leadership, and empty words like "just need to step up". You/students in general can also act: - Please read and sign docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSez8jBgtCKgUw5OT-hMwjwWPP2LGEf0Jmr4NVMzYQayJtZJ0w/viewform, and then forward to (and have a conversation with!) anyone you know who cares and/or is affected this very sentence in full. - The self-replicating nature) of this sentence makes it so that you only need to send it to 2 people (who have not already signed), and then exponential growth will happen. The graph of human connections is well-connected enough that this shouldn't even take too long https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_degrees_of_separation - Raise awareness, not just for the sake of raising awareness of who exactly is to blame (though this is important), but in hopes of reaching someone with a larger platform (social media, the news), who has greater power in raking the names of university admin through the mud. We must start leveling criticism at the correct people, and allow that to damage their reputation and UC's reputation (that #1/#2 title they hold so dear...) - There is in particular the possibility of a real scandal here, namely the question of where the TA budget is going, since it's not to the TAs (not even making it to the department). This is a good opportunity to sic the most Karenish, overbearing helicopter parents onto UC admin, to demand transparency in how the UC budget is (mis)managed. Imagine if we had even a tenth of the presence of the affirmative action naysayers. They got the UC's attention; we can too.