Ohio University Student Senate President Gabby Bacha breaks down why the body decided not to approve the latest resolution.
As you may know, the Ohio University Student Senate voted in opposition of resolution 1516-19, a Resolution to Approve the CDDRS’ Process. This resolution was very important to our body and students, seeing as it would change our governing structure from a representative model to a direct democracy model. There were many reasons for senate’s disapproval of this resolution. I would like to outline some of them for you.
Much of the proposed charter via resolution 1516-19 raised concerns that had the potential to make the body exclusionary. One such concern was the observer’s right to speak. Under this provision of the new charter, the body could move to disallow a student to speak with a two-thirds majority vote. A similar provision is included for proposals. All it would take is a simple majority to exclude a proposal from being heard by the whole body. This can greatly silence a minority opinion that may be vital to the conversation of progress. Additionally, a provision would allow non-voting members, specifically the media, to be asked to leave at any given time. This can lead to a lack of transparency, as well as a violation of freedom of the press. Many of our Diversity Affairs commissioners shared various concerns with the new participatory structure. One such concern was that the new structure would limit the amount of votes they currently have in a larger body down to one. These Diversity Affairs commissions would hold a vote within its smaller structure to determine how the commission would utilize its one vote in the larger body. This drew several concerns. Would one have to "out" themselves to vote for LGBTQA Affairs? Would the commissioner of Black Affairs have to determine who is "black enough" to participate in the commission? How would Minority Affairs identify who is an Appalachian student, or a student with a learning disability? These practices have the ability to be exclusionary. Furthermore, when the Committee for Directly Democratic Reform of Senate presented on this charter, it was unable to answer many of the clarifying questions of the body, alluding that it would figure out these processes at a later time. The body felt that in order for the charter to pass, it needed to be thorough, as the charter would be taking place in the near future.
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Our body did not feel the proposal put forward by the Committee for Directly Democratic Reform of Senate adequately fit the needs of students and left erroneous room for exclusionary practices and would lead to a lack of transparency. As your elected representatives we feel there is an opportunity to create a better student government on this campus, and we are having conversations about how we want to reach this goal. We also feel that it is important to remain true to the ideals that led students to elect us into office – representation to better serve students.
I would like to conclude this letter by thanking the Committee for Directly Democratic Reform of Senate for its time and work on this charter. If you have questions or concerns, Student Senate is located in Baker 305. Our meetings are Wednesdays at 7:15 p.m. in Walter 235 and are open to the public.
Gabby Bacha is the Student Senate president at Ohio University and a senior studying political science.
