When Senate President Forrest Hinton announced a Student Senate delegation would head to Washington, D.C. over the winter break to promote “student issues,” I had to question the wisdom of his decision. I suspect most of you would agree debating issues relevant to the “real world” is certainly an improvement over debating issues relevant only to the latest government bill minutiae. But I’ve also learned that “promoting student issues'” is usually a euphemism for mindlessly repeating whatever half-baked Democratic Party talking points happen to be fashionable at the time, as the manufactured outrage over financial aid “cuts” illustrated pretty clearly.
At best I figured the whole trip would be a wash, but hoped at least the aspiring politicians in Witherspoon would learn a few lessons from the professional politicians in Washington; the whole concept of “all politics is local,” for instance, and responding to one’s constituents.
It looks like the senators certainly picked up some lessons from the pros — just not the kind I anticipated.
Last Wednesday night the Senate’s Public Affairs Committee conducted a “hearing” on Resolution 85, labeled the Academic Bill of Rights Act. Introduced by freshman Sen. Benton Sawrey. The resolution’s single purpose was to endorse the passage of similarly titled legislation introduced in the North Carolina General Assembly that would implement certain educational guarantees and prohibitions for UNC institutions. The “hearing” itself came to resemble a circus, but it was certainly noteworthy for raising the standard of issues considered by the Senate — and it’s the first time I can recall ever seeing more than one faculty member in a Senate meeting at any given time.
Regardless of anyone’s position on either piece of legislation, Sawrey deserves an award for having the audacity to raise a sensitive “real world” issue and then seeing the debate he started through to its conclusion. He could consider teaching a how-to course on that topic to some members of the student media. But that’s why the conclusion itself was such an ignominious affront to the notion of student self-governance, and where the lessons learned from the pros up in Washington shone through.
After struggling to maintain order in an atmosphere that more approximated dueling political rallies than an academic debate, after abruptly cutting off speakers who undoubtedly had better things to do with their time than testify before an arbitrary Student Government committee and after enduring the sheer magnitude of multi-hour commentary from both sides, the committee ended public comment and Sen. Ken Hoy of the Graduate School moved to skip committee debate entirely and go straight to a vote.
It would have been bad enough had the committee supported Hoy’s motion and voted down the bill without comment. At least someone could have made an argument that an actual vote was cast and recorded, even if no temperate discussion of the resolution took place. Yet apparently, even that wasn’t good enough, and committee members weren’t going to be satisfied until they could tangibly put their new D.C.-derived skills to use. So after some confusion following Hoy’s push for an immediate vote, he relented instead to allow Sen. Stephanie Griggs of CHASS seniors to call for the resolution to be immediately dismissed without any recorded vote at all. Committee chair Alex Carter made an admirable effort to stop the impending train wreck while still keeping some level of impartiality, but the committee had him outnumbered. On a near unanimous vote (with Carter as the lone dissent), Hoy, Griggs and Sen. Adam Gardner of CALS juniors, Sen. Andrew Kelly of CHASS juniors and freshman Sen. James Wally all voted to toss the Resolution immediately without any committee consideration. The motion to dismiss itself even passed without any debate on its merits.
Compelling arguments can be made on both sides for the Academic Bill of Rights itself. In true American “red state vs. blue state” fashion, that reality was on full display during the public testimony as proponents and detractors masterfully talked past each other in ways even politicians on Capitol Hill would envy. The fact that an issue is hotly contested, however, is no excuse to punt on its consideration. When the Senate has already endured more attacks on its relevance than any time in recent memory, the Public Affairs Committee’s actions were a profound embarrassment — instead of choosing to lead, they chose to exhibit the most rank of political cowardice. One hopes if they don’t learn from their decision the student body will educate them next month.
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