The body heard a presentation from LGBT Center Director delfin bautista as well as a student speak out calling for more graduate student representation on Student Senate.
Ohio University Student Senate may separate the way the body governs internally and externally by potentially creating a judicial panel.
At Wednesday night’s senate meeting, the Special Committee for Senate Reform gave a presentation about a resolution, which will be voted on at next week's general body meeting, to create a judicial panel.
The creation of a judicial panel would result in a constitutional amendment, according to the presentation. The change would eliminate the Rules and Procedures Committee and the Conduct and Discipline Committee. In addition, the Board of Elections would no longer need to be reformed every spring election.
“This will be a separate part of senate that will be a more ethical, unbiased way to reviewing rules and procedures changes, constitutional changes, as well as any conduct and discipline that we may have,” Hannah Clouser, senate treasurer and who sponsored the resolution, said.
If approved, the panel will be made up of seven associate justices, an executive justice, a chief justice and a clerk of court. The panel would decide on the impeachment of a senator or executive, according to the presentation.
Additionally during the meeting, Hashim Pashtun, a graduate student studying environmental engineering, spoke out at the meeting, saying he plans on writing a resolution to create a commission for graduate student affairs on Student Senate.
“We didn’t see better representation of international students on this body and we created the International Affairs Commission. We didn’t see better representation of the LGBT students, (and) we created the LGBT Affairs Commission,” Pashtum said after his speak out. “The same reason applies for the graduate students.”
During the meeting, senate also passed three resolutions: a budget to pay for senate’s printing fees, a budget to fund refreshments that will be in the senate office during Founders Day on Thursday and a resolution to appoint Abraham Kassem as a minority affairs senator.
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Additionally, at the meeting, delfin bautista, the director of the LGBT Center, gave a presentation to senate about blood drives in response to the body hosting a blood drive next week. delfin, who uses they/their pronouns and the lowercase spelling of their name, spoke about a ban from the Food and Drug Administration that doesn’t allow men who have had sex with men in the past year to give blood.
“(LGBT people) are being treated as second-class citizens,” they said.
Also at Wednesday night’s meeting, the body went into executive session, where only senate members were allowed. The body voted that its executive members were fit for office, Jared Ohnsman, senate's vice president, said.
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