If senate wants to represent students, then its members should take the task seriously — even if it means turning one of their own into the police.
It came to our attention Wednesday night that a member of Student Senate allegedly stole personal information about Ohio University students earlier this week.
The information included the last four digits of nine students’ social security numbers and home addresses and was stolen from a desk drawer in the Student Senate office in Baker, said Caitlyn McDaniel, senate vice president.
This is a big deal. Students should be able to trust the students representing them; so we’re confused as to why senate members waited so long to report the alleged stolen information. As of 4:40 p.m., the OU Police Department had not processed any reports from senate.
In an article that was published Wednesday, Vice Commissioner of Governmental Affairs Will Klatt said, “we’re not playing around with this,” because of “the seriousness” of the situation. If the situation is as serious as Klatt says it is — and we absolutely agree with him — then why not quickly report the case to authorities, or at least the Office of Community Standards and Student Responsibility?
Klatt added that some of the higher up members of senate had a culprit in mind, because their suspect had stolen things before, failed to show up at Wednesday’s senate meeting and was the sole person in the senate office at the time when the information was stolen. (It’s worth noting that McDaniel didn’t second that claim Thursday, however.)
The fact that there is a sitting senate member who Klatt said has stolen things in the past is unsettling in its own right. But we digress.
Senate members are shooting themselves in the foot with their lax attitude about the alleged stolen information. How could school administration and fellow students take them seriously when protesting tuition raises if having students’ social security numbers stolen isn’t treated as a big deal as soon as word of the incident made it to top senate executives?
If senate wants to represent students, then its members should take the task seriously — even if it means turning one of their own into the police.
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