Members discuss possible restrictions on hall elections
By HELENA RAYAM
News Writer
Some hall election materials may need regulation, said Coalition Council representative Michael Fierro at Monday's Campus Life Council meeting.
"Both gender and race ethnicity have been used in hall elections," said Fierro. Showing a campaign poster that made a joke about the Polish and Germans, Fierro questioned the appropriateness of the joke.
"Ignorance goes beyond historical minority groups such as Blacks and Hispanics," he said. Fierro also said that some campaign posters or flyers have showed defaming pictures of women.
Fierro said some materials found in hall elections would not be allowed in campus-wide elections because of restrictions.
Kelly Folks, chairman of the judicial board said, "We've actually had complaints that [the guidelines for campus-wide elections] were too restrictive."
In the residence halls, the issue of what materials are deemed inappropriate is at the discretion of the rector. Varying opinions lead to different levels of tolerance for certain campaign materials.
"Although some of their ideas may be insensitive, I'm just cautious about censoring people's ideas," said off-campus senator Pat Foy. "An election is a free expression of ideas."
St. Edward's rector Father Dave Scheidler said that he allows some posters to go up while restricting others, but prefers that the students make the choice. He suggested that dorms make more use of the judicial board representatives in their dorm so that uniformity is established "without curtailing free speech."
"I think we need to be sensitive clearly, but hopefully the voters do that," said Bill Kirk, assistant vice president of Student Affairs.
Although he said that he wanted students to make their own judgments about the campaign posters Kirk was pleased with proceedings.
"I'm delighted you're making this point to prevent that the standards become lower because this is so commonplace."
In other CLC news:
uMembers examined the process for making duLac revisions. Kirk said that there were many ways to make changes but that Residence Life recommends the changes in the disciplinary process. CLC members also discussed whether faculty members should have input in certain duLac clauses.
uThe Committee for the First Year of Studies and the Advisory Committee on the Disabled have added student members as a result of the resolutions drafted that requested student membership on these committees.
uThe University will implement the diversity practicum for transfer students. This will be a mandatory diversity awareness presentation or meeting as part of the transfer orientation at the beginning of the semester. It is not certain that the program will be ready to begin in the fall semester of 2000.
uVice president of Student Affairs, Father Poorman, has received the CLC resolution on parking in basketball courts and will research the issue. "Enforcement becomes the problem," said Kirk, referring to parking lots with standard hours when parking is not permitted.
All News Stories for Tuesday, April 4, 2000
