Is it any wonder most students avoid getting involved with student government? With the constant confusion, back biting and infighting these elected few on the Associated Students, Inc. Senate have among themselves over issues and positions, who in their right mind would want to join?
Too often, it appears that Tweedledee has no relative connection to Tweedledum once the ASI Senate meeting comes to order. Hmmm.
The last meeting was proof in the pudding that the kids don’t play well together. As noted in the Daily Forty-Niner article “ASI at odds over new amendment,” our student government hasn’t been able to figure out who peed on whose corn flakes.
It’s reasonable to add new members to under-represented groups, hence the “under-represented” notoriety. Rather than reading the bold print, though, bickering over who should be more under-represented than others broke out. Hmmm.
First, the “Committee on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Affairs, the Committee on Disabilities Affairs and the Committee on Women Affairs” each wished to expand their representation. That seems fair enough, right? Hmmm.
Not according to the temper tantrum ASI President Mark Andrews threw. Andrews whimpered that Women’s Affairs “has been in violation of the ASI bylaws for three years.” Helloooo, ASIIIIIii. Who has been watching the bylaws for the past three years for us? For that matter, who’s been watching them this fall?
In a show of righteous indignation, Andrews proclaimed, “The executive branch was wrongly kept out of the loop in regards to the development of this position.” Well wah, wah. The bylaws don’t read, ASI Vice President and Chairwoman Lucy Montano “is forced to report on what she’s doing.”
Either change the bylaws to meet a more hegemonic criteria. Or get over it. Don’t make us come over there for a collective diaper changing.
Already this semester, ASI potentially put women in harm’s way by delaying to vote on increasing campus security for a week because the original “language” was confusing. Nobody could determine accurately whether three or four “actual” sexual assaults took place. Hmmm.
The true affront wasn’t that the delay in action was caused by a confused representative, a woman already mentioned in this article no less, who doesn’t read the Daily Forty-Niner, but that none on the ASI took the time to find out what actually constitutes sexual assault, or how serious of a threat it can be.
A quick Google to the U.S. Department of Justice website on “Sexual assault on campus” would have shown that “35 out of every 1,000 women are raped” in a nine-month period. But a 10-second search was too much work, apparently, when they could just put it off (and put more women at risk) for another week to quibble like spoiled children about the “actual” reported number.
Those numbers only count “actual” rape and are not all-inclusive or definitive of what constitutes sexual assault, which makes the trivial argument over “three or four” inconsequential and petty. Hmmm.
Perhaps if ASI wasn’t so absorbed in translating that a campuswide survey – which indicated students wanted healthier food choices – meant we need a tanning salon, it could accomplish things such as equitable representation and student safety issues.
We don’t insinuate that some ASI reps don’t have their hearts in it, but sometimes it seems the right foot has no idea of what the left hand is doing.
We leave the ASI Senate with one question: “Are you guys sure you want those jobs, or do we have to give you a time out?” Hmmm.
