The Boise State Arbiter reports:
Senate Bill number 10, titled “Amendment to Article X ASBSU [Associated Students of Boise State University = the BSU Student Government] Senate Rules of Procedures,” was sent to the Internal Committee of Ways and Means. Sen. Cyndi Blue, Sen. Kayla Davis, Sen. Mark Getecha and Sen. Amy Ortmann sponsor it.
Sen. Blue said the bill is a response to how ASBSU is perceived on campus. She said the issue of a conflict of interest has come up continually.
The purpose of Bill Number 10 is to “significantly reduce the confusion caused by having Senators work, intern or be actively involved in organizations or student newspapers.” The amendment to Article 10 of the ASBSU constitution is purposed to add another section.
It states that “a senator of ASBSU may not work, intern, or be actively involved in organizations or student newspapers that create an atmosphere where students do not feel represented.”
For more context, see this Boise Weekly article. According to it, the bill's advocates seem to be particularly irate about student senator Jonathon Sawmiller, who heads the campus College Republicans chapter and writes for the Arbiter. He "first made waves in April, when he wrote an editorial ... [condemning the Latino group MECha by citing its] origins as a militant separatist group in the 1960s, calling the group 'racist Neo-Nazis,' and criticiz[ing] the university for 'funding organizations that call for the overthrow of America.'" He then wrote an Arbiter op-ed called "Protect Marriage From Violence--Vote Yes on HJR2," supporting the proposed anti-same-sex-union state constitutional amendment, "and cit[ing] statistics claiming that partners in same-sex relationships are more prone to domestic abuse, mental illness and suicide."
Then the College Republicans put up a poster, "which wasn't approved by ASBSU, as is required for student organizations," "to support 'Freedom Week,' a commemoration of the fall of the Berlin Wall sponsored by a national conservative student organization."
The poster included drawings of Che Guevara and Ronald Reagan under the title, "Who is the real revolutionary?" It labeled Guevara a "murderer," saying "his ideology murdered 100,000,000 people." Reagan, on the other hand, is identified as a "liberator," with the caption, "His ideology freed 425,574,817 people."
In response, students from BGLAD, the Boise State Cultural Center and other organizations again packed an ASBSU meeting, hoping to combat what was again being called "hate" from the conservative student. Later in the same week, a new unauthorized poster--this time, from an anonymous source--was posted around campus. On this poster, under the title "Abuse of Power," were two pictures. One showed Adolf Hitler, with the quotes "dirty Jews" and "His ideology cost 6 million lives." The other showed Sawmiller in his military fatigues, with the quotes, "Dirty illegal alien," and, "What will his ideology cost our students at Boise State?"
(Sawmiller had been quoted as using the term "dirty illegal aliens" in his April Arbiter editorial, although the opinion editor admitted in a correction that a staff member had added the term "dirty" independent of the author.) ...
ASBSU president Wyatt Parke decided to use his veto power to cancel Freedom Week, telling The Arbiter he "didn't feel like I could endorse a week that had gone so awry." ...
[Sawmiller's] opponents remain steadfast in their belief that his written opinions stretch the boundary between protected free speech and inflammatory hate speech. Several of Sawmiller's fellow senators recently put this sentiment into print: They drafted a bill that, if passed, would dictate that "a senator of ASBSU may not work, intern, or be actively involved in organizations or student newspapers that create an atmosphere where students do not feel represented."
Thanks to Clayton Cramer for the pointer.
UPDATE: Commenter Jonathan Sawmiller reports that "the ASBSU Ways and Means Committee indefinitely tabled the proposed Senate Bill #10, so those words shouldn't be appearing in ASBSU code anytime soon."
Related Posts (on one page):
- "Where's the ACLU?"
- "Creat[ing] an Atmosphere Where Students Do Not Feel Represented":
Offense #2:
While both of these examples are over the top, they both have some basis in truth. MECha has been accused (with justification) as having Chicano separatist and supremist links. Guevara was an unreformed Stalin supporter (even after Khruschev's revelations).
I know this might be uncomfortable for some. However,
in my opinion, Sawmiller's comments about MECha and Guevara should be no considered no more hateful than calling the US a fascist state and GWB a war criminal. (My guess is that you can find the latter two expressed quite often on college campuses.)
Since both of Sawmiller's comments have a basis in fact, I would say they are more truthful than MnZ's latter two examples of comments.
Remember this is a college campus: enforcement would mean that conservative students will not be allowed to be senators. No problem.
Way too many significant digits there.
The Miami Hurricans have accepted a bowl bid in Boise this year. How the mighty have fallen.
oooh! I want that poster!
Stop acting like you're being victimized for your ideology. It's annoying and un-manly.
How is the latter over the top? I'd say its quite accurate.
CEB: "Way too many significant digits there."
That, however, is true!
Gratuitous stupidity. Every student who drafted that bill should have to attend a seminar on American civics.
(No, it's not "reeducation camps" -- this *is* a school, right? The college can feel obliged that it doesn't graduate anyone with NO F---ING CLUE how this country is supposed to work, right? Because what do we get otherwise? Dennis Prager.)
Of course, I view student government as a monstrous con job, anyway. The school pretends to let the students govern themselves and the students pretent the powers they have amount to something. Only the money is real.
Some might construe the poster to indicate that Che invented Stalinism. Instead, he just supported it.
If the "you" is referring to Sawmiller or the College Republicans, they're not "acting", they are indeed being targeted by their opponents. If the "you" is referring to the commenter, he's not "acting like (he's) being victimized", he's giving his opinion that Sawmiller and the College Republicans, and future putative Republican members of the ASBSU, will be targeted by the bill, which is clearly stated in the article. While there have been pretenses to victimization in the past, this appears to be a case where the "victimizer" is real.
Those "some" should take a class on grammar. It says "his ideology" not "the ideology he invented," so its quite reasonable to assume that it is the ideology he possesses not the ideology that he created.
Aside from that, they should take a decent history class, and maybe a political science or economics class so that they understand what the poster is trying to convey. Ronald Reagan didn't invent his ideology either. You know, when Reason magazine interviewed him, they had the same ideology already :-)
I agree, but who do you think will win the bidding war to hire the guilty "staff member" LAT, NYT, CBS, Reuters?
- Alaska Jack
I've been in academia my entire adult life. Facts is facts.
As for being un-manly: Why the name-calling? I think Homer and Aristotle would have found it "unmanly" to allow injustices against one's group to go unremarked and unchallenged year-after-year.
To you--unmanly. To me--Obligatory upon a man.
We in the Annoying and Unmanly Ideological Victims Alliance (AUIVA) will not tolerate this sort of anti-annoying-and-unmanlyist hate speech.
{/snark}
By the way, this "troublemaker" Sawmiller may be a 21 year old college student—but he was also called away to active military duty earlier this year. No chickenhawk him!
Great, first I had to deal with the Alliance of Annoying and Unmanly Ideological Victims (AAUIV), now this.
I guess the Senate will he's no longer participating in the student senate or writing for the student paper, non?
Touche! :D
Seriously though, I generally find that snarky comments about how conservatives and libertarians are victimized on college campuses come across as passive aggressive, whiny or weak. Just my opinion, of course. Still, it's time for conservatives to stand up for themselves without playing the victim card. Nobody likes a complainer.
One of the many troubles with the bill is the underlying assumption that every organization is apparently supposed to have as a purpose that others "feel" "represented." I don't even know what the hell that means, even laying aside the stupidity of assuming every campus organization--or any campus organization--might have some sort of purpose of representing everybody.
How in the hell is that supposed to work?
Must all students must feel represented by an organization for it to be acceptable? How is that even possible? It would certainly rule out membership in any black, Asian, hispanic, gay, womens' or religious organizations for starters.
Or is it ok as long as some students feel represented by the organization in question? But doesn't the mere fact an organization exists indicate that someone must feel it represents them, otherwise it wouldn't, you know, have any members?
Either no one can belong to anything, or all organizations are acceptable.
It's enough to make one suspect the phrase "that create an atmosphere where students do not feel represented" is actually a euphamism for "that somehow annoy the sponsors of this bill", except that no one intelligent enough to get into a hallowed academic institution like Boise State University could possibly be so stupid as to think that would be legal . . . could they?
Q. What the heck does this mean anyway?
A. Whatever the next leftist victim group wants it to mean.
I wrote a few guest columns on the editorial page of my campus newspaper when I was at my undergrad. On two occasions, the editorial page editor actually changed my columns by replacing words. In one of the columns, the changes made it sound like I was advocating the opposite of what I actually wrote. In the other, it made it so the column was internally inconsistent. I was unable to get a correction either time so I stopped writing for the paper.
I don't find it hard to believe that kind of funny business doesn't go on at other campuses.
It could be worse, they could have written "... where students feel dissed".
The opponents of Mr. Sawmiller would likely see this as entirely different. In an era of intense group identification, disagreeing with the political views of group is seen as "hating" the members somehow. To not support gay marriage is to hate gays, because it's like, really important to them and central to their identity. Similarly, to have a view on illegal immigration that is different from an affected group's view is interpreted as harming its members in some way. This strikes me as enormously tribal and primitive. The examination of an idea is abandoned in favor of some tribal with us/against us vote. It is not only what is lost (debate, reason, discussion) but what replaces it (loss of individuality) that is worrisome.
Nobody likes a complainer? Well certainly I don't. That's what makes the tone of your posts so off-putting. By any chance, are you you one of those oppressed liberals living in Bush's Amerikkka?
And really, "unmanly"? A sexist archaism! You'd better hope there are no feminists lurking about. Talk about victim cards--no one plays them like the left. Honestly, have you really not noticed that?
Possibly the least enforceable regulation I've read in at least a decade. The ONLY excuse can be that these are college students (and given the limitation of "breadth" requirements these days, possibly never actually exposed to, say, a college level American politics/con. law/political theory course) and therefore less experienced at thinking about and writing this stuff (and paid less to write this stuff) than the folks in the Buckeye State who wrote the "negligent indecent exposure" statute (under which they're actually going to try to prosecute that poor brain-scrambled "naked DA".)
That said, if any progressive student organization was responsible for writing or inspiring this piece of regulatory nonsense, i'd urge 'em to (a) stop whinging, and (b) learn to write snappier responses. If they want to continue writing posters or ads with nice big numbers, I'd start with an estimate of the reduction in the Western Hemisphere indigenous population at the hands of Europeans since 1500
(noting which portion of that was specifically done at the direction of the R.C. Church), then I'd add in the number of people (again, admittedly, accurate only within a significant digit) actually taken in the slave trade to the Western Hemisphere (noting the percentage who never actually got all the way here). THAT should make some folks feel unwelcome, or unrepresented.
If I could somehow work in something about Newt's, and Denny Praeger's, recently expressed contempt for our American civilization, as embodied by the Founders in our Constitution, (and therefore, implicitly, tarring with the same brush all self-proclaimed conservatives who claim them as paragons) I'd throw it in, too.
R gould-saltman
"And really, "unmanly"? A sexist archaism! You'd better hope there are no feminists lurking about."
Careful, mind you don't emasculate his argument and render him impotent to respond.
Does anyone have a clue where Sawmiller might have found data that say same-sex relationships are more violence prone?
2. Once again in Academia feelings trump anything else. And just who will be the judge? Some sort of star chamber where certain ideologies will no doubt have no voice.
3. Who do I blame? Cliff Notes. No really, I often wonder how many of these double speaking proto-totalitarians never actually read any Orwell. Becasue they sure don't get it.
Where's the other leftists? Right, nowhere.
And notice those on the left are defending this censorship policy and calling those of us who disagree "annoying and un-manly."
Read this one more time folks: "a senator of ASBSU may not...be actively involved in organizations or student newspapers that create an atmosphere where students do not feel represented."
So, a person who is a member of the Roman Catholic Church and goes to Mass on Sundays will be thrown out because women are not "represented" in the hierarchy.
Lovely.
Any member of an accredited victim group can claim to be offended--need not be true, naturally--and a sympathetic admin will punish the offender. Good way to keep the conservatives shut up.
Now all a member of an AVG has to do is claim to "feel" unrepresented.
Just being or feeling unrepresented is not enough. You have to be a member of an AVG. Otherwise, the admin will tell you to go away and stop bothering them, and, on your way out, to get a life.
Incidentally, Mr. Sawmiller's ASBSU site says he's back from his deployment.
That's interesting Sarah. Because as a member of the U.S. military in active duty, and given the military's "Don't ask, don't tell" policy, it would seem his service would make him unable to serve as a Senator.
After all, he was "actively involved in organizations or student newspapers that create an atmosphere where students do not feel represented."
And were are the openly gay/bi/trans representation? There are none.
This may explain why according to the Boise Weekly article linked in the article Sawmiller was removed from office.
And I quote: "But for the first few weeks of the fall semester, Sawmiller was actually at war, serving as a chemical weapons specialist in Iraq for the Idaho Air National Guard. While he was gone, he was removed from office as an ASBSU senator..."
Again, where's the ACLU?
Again, where is the left?
I need not bother asking. We all know the answer.
Serve your nation, get throw out of the Senate.
As someone earlier posted: Hell is defined as trying to defend these actions before a Federal judge.
Removing a man from office because of his service to this nation, I thought there were laws to protect vets.
Where's the ACLU? Where are the liberals? They are the ones ATTACKING this man.
You know, free speech disputes are best when the speaker being suppressed is either venal or stupid. It's got to have an element of the Nazis marching on Skokie, or it's too easy, too obvious. It only really presents a tension between freedom and decency if the speaker is somehow vile or possibly sub-moronic. So for educational purposes, I'm pleased to see that this state Senator -- who is unquestionably being treated wrong by thuggish student politicians -- thinks that gay people getting married threatens traditional marriage from "violence."
But, regarding what "Catholics need not apply..." asked about Sawmiller's removal, he was removed from the Senate because according to the Senate Constitution, Senators must report to the Senate by the beginning of the first regularly-scheduled work day and after the end of the first calender day. However, since Sawmiller was in Iraq at the time, many argued that removing him was illegal under the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USC title 38, sections 4301 through 4333).
I just thought I'd throw that out there.
I was a 3L and, because of my undergrad degree in photography and cinema, I was recruited to be the photography editor for the law school newspaper, The Hearsay. The Hearsay originally was a mimeographed rag filled with bad jokes when I was a 1L. But a group of former journalism students took over the next year and turned it into a passable paper.
The Hearsay published an endorsement for Ronald Reagan's reelection as President on its editorial page. A letter to the editor in opposition to Reagan's reelection was also published. A number of student groups felt that this endorsement was a hostile act to racial minorities. A meeting was held where the President of the Student Bar Association, the Editor in Chief of the Hearsay, and the heads of various law school student groups spoke.
I was amazed to hear how many students (many of them 3Ls) wanted the paper punished. I was the only pro-Reagan member of the editorial board at that meeting. These students were upset because the paper endorsed a candidate they did not like.
What they did not know is that, originally, the paper was going to endorse Mondale. An editorial board meeting was held to discuss two issues. First: should the paper endorse a candidate for president. Second: which candidate. It was taken as a given that if the paper endorsed anyone, it would be Mondale. A long debate took place, and in the end, a vote was taken on the first issue. The vote on the second issue was thought to be a given...but it wasn't. You cannot believe the surprise in the room when the vote went for Reagan.
I supported Reagan. Yet I cast a vote on the first issue to permit the paper to endorse a candidate FULLY BELIEVING that it would endorse the candidate I approved. I felt it was more important that the paper be able to endorse a candidate, than that it endorse the candidate I preferred.
It is too bad that few students today have the same belief and respect for our system as editors of the Hearsay had back in 1984.
Yet I cast a vote on the first issue to permit the paper to endorse a candidate FULLY BELIEVING that it would endorse the candidate that I opposed.
That's what you get for posting at 5am.
Actually no. According to Wikipedia, the USSR had a population of 293,047,571. That's 9 significant digits, same as above.
If you factor in the population of USSR puppet states, I wouldn't be surprised if the actual value reaches the quoted one (though I admit it does seem a little high.)
Actually no....
Again, the liberals can't combat the speech they don't like with speech of their own. Their solution is to shut off the speech they don't like because they can dish it but can't take it.
By the way, here's the link to the poster the College Republicans put up around campus, with the sources of the numbers that seem to be in dispute http://students.yaf.org/images/freedom_week/FreedomWeek3.pdf
The groups stated aim is create "A nation autonomous and free - culturally, socially, economically, and politically- will make its own decisions on the usage of our lands, the taxation of our goods, the utilization of our bodies for war, the determination of justice (reward and punishment), and the profit of our sweat."
If a white student group had the motto "For the race everything, for those outside the race nothing" in their founding document, would we hesitate to compare them to neo-nazis? If a white student group professed to create an autonmous nation for "La Raza," would we hesitate to call them white separatists?
Over the top? Unfortuately, based on the group's actual documents which purport to give the group its mission, his commentary was accurate. Where did I find these quotes? Right off the Berkeley MEChA chapter's website.
Expect a lot more of this sort of brilliance if these intellectuals ever manage to "get their hands on the whip". Tolerance and diversity is their goal and anyone who gets in their way, or holds a different view, will be crushed.
No, they probably didn't. Like POPs, he's in the groundwater by now.