The NC State Student Senate University Relations committee met Monday evening to discuss a bill that could decide the fate of the Student Government-run “Wolfpack Students” Facebook group.

Student Senate Pro Tempore Mitchell Moravec, a senior studying psychology, and Sen. Luke Perrin, a sophomore studying political science, introduced the bill, named “Wolfpack Students Termination Act.” Moravec said he felt the bill was necessary due to a decline in the quality of conversation that took place on the page’s public forum, to the point that it was not achieving the purposes that it was established for in 2010.

The bill was passed from the committee with an unfavorable review for a second hearing in the Senate. This ruling comes with the recommendation that the Student Senate vote “no” on the bill in its current state. If the legislation is passed in the Senate, Wolfpack Students will be shut down on Dec. 14.

Moravec said that while he took a stand against Wolfpack Students by drafting this bill, he was ultimately more interested in the feedback he would get from students and other members of Student Government and the discussions that the bill would generate.

“I think we had a good input from both senators and acting members of student government as well as the broader community,” Moravec said. “With any bill or legislation I write, I want discussion to happen. I heard enough concerns to warrant a student government reaction, obviously I pick a side and write that into the bill.”

As it stands now, the Wolfpack Students Facebook group is run by and overseen by admins and moderators within Student Government. The forum was created as a place for NC State students to discuss current events on campus and share relevant stories and information with the student body. Recently, students have complained that the discussion board has become hostile and divisive, detracting from the intended purpose of a place for students to come together for productive conversation.

“I think [Wolfpack Students] is a really valuable resource for students,” said Meredith Biechele, a member of Student Government, a moderator of the Facebook group and a junior studying mechanical engineering. “We have 15,000 members in one group and that’s a great resource for student organizations and peer-to-peer interaction. I do think there has been some heated debate lately, which is why it’s currently being reviewed.”

Biechele’s role is to ensure that conversation remains civil and that the people who are posting and commenting in the group are students who are actively enrolled at the university. The moderators follow Facebook’s guidelines for content that is allowed to be posted to make a decision regarding the removal of a post, according to Biechele.

Jacqueline Gonzalez, chair of the University Relations committee and a junior studying political science, said during the discussion that there have been some moments in the group’s history that could be classified as harassment, which is what led to the bill’s creation and subsequent committee discussion.

“In the time that the group has existed, there have been conversations that could be labeled harassment,” Gonzalez said. “This bill is here because this is the process we have for the bill, it was sent to our committee by the Senate president.”

The students who joined in for the discussion were overwhelmingly in support of keeping the Wolfpack Students page open, though the possibility of amending certain aspects of the way the group is moderated were voiced at varying points throughout the discussion.

Over on the Wolfpack Students page itself, students advocated positions ranging from keeping the group as it currently exists, to a complete change in the management of page, but most seemed to be in favor of keeping Wolfpack Students.

Kathryn Howard, a senior studying chemical engineering, brought up how much of a valuable resource the page could be, especially in times of emergency.

“The SBP used the group just last week to communicate real-time the university’s decision about class scheduling,” Howard wrote on the Wolfpack Students page during the committee discussion. “This group is important.”

After an hour and a half of discussion and debate regarding the bill, the committee voted in favor of passing the bill along with an unfavorable review to the Senate for a second hearing. Gonzalez explained that the review meant that the committee recommends that the Student Senate vote “no” on the bill.

Student Body President Paul Nolan, a senior studying material science and engineering, said that he felt torn on what the future of the group should look like. Nolan said he recognized the utility of the group as an effective means of communication and a direct line to a large portion of the student body, but that he also sympathized with people who felt that they had been victimized by some members of the group.

“The group was created by SBP Chandler Thompson back in the day [2010] as a mechanism of reaching students and getting feedback, but now has 15,000 members and has morphed into an ambiguous public forum kind of thing,” Nolan said. “Basically, it’s turned into a mess.”

Nolan said that in spite of the challenges the group presents, it is undeniably an effective tool for communication with the student body. Whatever the result of the bill is, Nolan has the authority to unilaterally shut down the group, without approval from the Senate. Nolan referred to that as a “nuclear option” and not something he is likely to do, instead opting to hear what comes from the conversations sparked from this bill before making up his mind.

“This has been an ongoing dialogue in Student Government,” Nolan said. “I’m just as curious as everyone else as to what the discussion that comes out of these meetings.”

The bill is going into its second hearing on Monday at 7:30 p.m. in Talley Student Union, where it will either be rejected, passed or sent back to committee for further discussion.