ASUC meeting
Seth David Schoen (schoen@uclink4.Berkeley.EDU)
20 Nov 1997 10:27:38 GMT
It was very exciting to see several CalLib members present and speaking at
the ASUC Senate meeting last night against SB 40, A Bill in Support of
the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action By Any Means Necessary. It was
my first time ever attending a Senate meeting, and I was very grateful
for the assistance of (and the opportunity to meet) Chris Gray, the President
of Berkeley College Republicans, and Student-At-Large representative in the
ASUC Senate. Mr. Gray was able to arrange for time for me and another member
to speak against BAMN during the debate on SB 40.
It was nice to have the opportunity to meet and talk to some of the BAMN
members; in fact, the quotations I read and events I described involved
people who were present in the Senate chambers, which was neat. For instance,
I read from a 1995 letter of Ronald Cruz, who had just given a speech to the
Senate.
I argued that BAMN was a terrorist group which had shown itself to be
uninterested in political discourse, debate, or education. I said that
ASUC should sponsor groups of all political persuasions, but not groups
which engage in violence, as it was reasonable to believe that BAMN did.
Another member said that BAMN threatened people, and Mr. Gray said it
was inappropriate for ASUC sponsorship to be granted, and that BAMN was
not a legitimate political group because of its militant orientation.
BAMN supporters, aside from arguing that the group was beneficial and
important, said that it was educationally oriented; they also said it
would be discriminatory not to fund BAMN because of its ideology. Some
people claimed that the group's "direct action" philosophy was ideological
and it would be illegal to discriminate against groups which advocated
direct action; a few people said it would be wrong to discriminate against
groups because they engaged in it. It was also noted that no allegations
against BAMN had been proven.
The meeting contained the rather memorable comment "When they [BAMN] blow up
the Campanile, we can take away their funding", which drew laughs from people
on both sides.
The measure (reconsideration of SB 40) originally failed, but the rolls were
kept open and when more Senators arrived late at the meeting it was carried.
Therefore, BAMN will receive $125 in support from the ASUC. Berkeley students
not wishing to fund BAMN can receive a $0.004 refund from ASUC if they want
to opt out; I think I'll go with the judgment of the Senate for now.
Several Senators endorsed the idea that all student groups deserve trust
and an opportunity to prove themselves; at the same time, several BAMN
supporters in the Senate implied that they would defund BAMN if it broke
the law or resorted to violence in the future. In fact, BAMN member
Heather Bergman, while not renouncing the philosophy of direct action,
invited the Senators to make later re-assessments of BAMN, if they wanted
to, in light of how they saw its conduct later on. I'm sure this
possibility will remain present and interesting.
I really enjoyed the opportunity to attend the meeting. Thanks to Mr. Gray,
the Senators who yielded time to speakers, and to the CalLib and BAMN members
who attended.
--
Seth David Schoen L&S '01 (undeclared) / schoen@uclink4.berkeley.edu
Magna dis immortalibus habenda est atque huic ipsi Iovi Statori, antiquissimo
custodi huius urbis, gratia, quod hanc tam taetram, tam horribilem tamque
infestam rei publicae pestem totiens iam effugimus. -- Cicero, in Catilinam I