Graduate Student Senate voted Tuesday to update Chapter 16 in its Rules and Procedures to include respecting one’s pronouns and voiced its condemnation of racism toward the Asian community.
A resolution was passed that will add duties for the GSS treasurer, including the establishment of a new committee. That committee will enforce the inclusion of proper pronoun usage in the Rules and Procedures. GSS will have training on this in the beginning of the year when the new body is together, Letitia Price, commissioner of Women’s Affairs, said.
Chapter 16 of the GSS Rules and Procedures will reflect those changes. Currently, there is no language within the Rules and Procedures and other governing documents that specifies the importance of respecting one’s pronouns, Price said.
At the last GSS meeting, there were some instances of continuous misgendering. The situation was addressed Tuesday by Brett Fredericksen , commissioner of Academic Life: Research, who said he was personally unsettled with the situation.
“In previous years, we’ve just used other stipulations to make sure people are respectful to one another,” Fredericksen said. “Putting this in plain speech with language about training on proper pronoun usage, how to enforce proper pronoun usage and how to execute disciplinary action if pronoun usage is not followed seems like a logical step — at least for me and my co-sponsors — after last meeting.”
In other business, a second resolution advocating for the Asian American and Pacific Islanders community at OU and condemning racial discrimination was passed.
With the recent rise in racism and violence against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders across the U.S., it is important for GSS to stand in solidarity with the AAPI community, Charlotte Yang, senator for the Graduate College, said.
“The previous president of the United States has publicly called coronavirus a ‘Chinese virus’ repeatedly during a pandemic,” Yang said. “These behaviors has fueled the arrogance of the racial discrimination against Asians and Asian Americans.”
The final resolution passed Wednesday endorsed Student Senate’s opposition to the proposed budget cuts for the Center for Law Justice and Culture, or CLJC.
The CLJC provides students an opportunity to study law and justice in an interdisciplinary way. There are proposed plans to cut the academic and pre-law programming budget, withdrawing critical support for several of its programs, according to the resolution.
GSS will be standing and collaborating with Senate on the restructure whenever their goals align, according to the resolution.
In other business, election results are in. Kaelyn Ferris won and will be GSS president for a second term. Remington Burwell, current commissioner for LGBT Affairs, has been elected as vice president.
There will be a runoff election for the treasurer position taking place April 6 through April 12, Nikol Lopez, department representative for Human and Consumer Sciences, said.
