Student senators resolve to promote inclusion, acceptance between campus organizations

Following an incident involving the defacement of bench sponsored by the Israeli Student Association, the student senate has passed a bill promoting inclusion and acceptance among all registered student organizations (photo by John Irwin).

At their meeting on Oct. 3, the Mason Student Senate passed a resolution addressing inclusion, acceptance, free speech and expression among Registered Student Organizations at Mason.

The resolution, to “nurture an environment of inclusion and acceptance, as well as the rights to free speech and expression, between registered student organizations,” is authored by Student Senators Aaron Yohai, Iqra Kapadia and Khushboo Bhatia.

“Resolution one is designed to hopefully convince student organizations to be a little bit more moderate in their treatment of other organizations. Obviously I can’t force them to do anything, that’s not what student government is about, but I am counting on their maturity. And when I say they, I mean all student organizations,” Yohai said.

Yohai said that there have been incidences of intolerance on campus, such as defacement of the Israel Student Association’s bench near Krug Hall.

“Nobody knows who was responsible for it. There was an incident of vandalism on the bench of the Israel Student Association. It has since been covered up and then repainted, but it was rude. Like I said, no group is being blamed for it,” Yohai said. “It was very offensive.”

According to Yohai, student groups should be courteous by following the Student Code of Conduct rules for harassment. 

“I think that anybody should be able to speak freely on campus and any group should be able to voice any opinion through official means or in the specified free speech zones that are courteous to other groups on campus,” Yohai said.

Although Yohai said that Rosanna Duran, the assistant director of student organizations, and the RSO lead team asked to have their name not appear in the resolution, student senators voted to add an amendment asking the RSO lead team to send student organizations a copy of the resolution.

“Obviously Student Government doesn’t want to step on any toes,” Yohai said. “RSO lead team does a fantastic job already. This year they have been extremely involved in training of new leaders on campus and registering of new organizations, and I don’t want to get in the way of that. I would not ask the RSO lead team to do anything extra that they did not think was necessary.”  

At the Sept. 26 Student Senate meeting, senator Pete Kleine questioned the resolution and its role in addressing  activity between Registered Student Organizations.

“I feel like this makes Student Government look like we are trying to do something that is not our job,” Kleine said at the meeting.

Yohai said that he would be open to approaching the RSO lead team and working out a solution with them.

“I have no doubt that they will want to cooperate and help with this. I think that everybody stands to benefit,” Yohai said.

Follow Fourth Estate's liveblog of the Mason Student Senate meetings every Thursday at 4:30 p.m.