ASUP Vice President Kyle Hamm proposed a meeting with UP administration to discuss the legal issues surrounding changing the Nondiscrimination Policy. The administration declined to meet. (Laura Frazier | THE BEACON)
By Kathryn Walters, Staff Writer walters14@up.edu
ASUP senate has decided to vote on Resolution 13-06, which recommends adding sexual orientation and gender identity to the Nondiscrimination Policy, even though an initial plan to discuss the legal ramifications of the resolution with an administrator will no longer happen.
Vice President Kyle Hamm said that because the administration declined to have a direct conversation with ASUP about the issue, a vote on the resolution at next Monday's Senate meeting is highly likely.
"Every senator I've spoken to on this issue is alarmed that the administration would do this, that they would not be willing to come in and give us information," he said. "The senators see this as them conceding the argument to us."
ASUP's decision to vote on Resolution 13-06 has the potential to affect the Nondiscrimination Policy, which currently does not include sexual orientation or gender identity. The Senate took on this resolution in response to the campus-wide debate about the Nondiscrimination Policy, which began after comments by University President Fr. Bill Beauchamp about gay faculty at UP sparked a student-run movement, Redefine Purple Pride, to petition changing the policy to include sexual orientation and gender identity.
If ASUP passes the resolution, it will be taken to Beauchamp, who will either approve or deny it with the consultation of the Board of Regents, which has control over University statutes.
Initially, ASUP wanted to hear from an administrator about what a change to the Nondiscrimination Policy would legally mean for UP. Hamm invited Danielle Hermanny, executive assistant to the President, and Fr. Gerry Olinger, vice president for Student Affairs, to talk to the Senate.
An extra Senate meeting was proposed to better accommodate Hermanny and Olinger's schedules. However, after Hamm sent an email to Hermanny on March 25 that asked whether a potential date for the meeting would work for her, she declined via email to talk to the Senate, advising Hamm to set up a meeting with the Ad Hoc Presidential Advisory Committee on Inclusion instead.
Hermanny, as a member of the Ad Hoc committee, said she felt that talking to the Senate would undermine the Committee's process of taking all issues, not just legal ones, into consideration.
"My concern was if I went to the Senate meeting to discuss the legal ramifications, then I would give the misimpression that the only issues were legal issues," she said.
Hamm was not satisfied with the administration's response.
"We are the representative of the student voice on campus, and this is a perfect example of when we should be taking up an issue from the students and writing a resolution and taking it up to the administration," he said. "There's an accountability in our process, and we don't see accountability in the Ad Hoc Committee's process."
Senator Elvia Gaona, who wrote Resolution 13-06, plans to put the resolution to debate and a vote at Monday's meeting despite not meeting with an administrator.
"There's no reason to wait. We've done our part," she said. "This was the only thing that was holding us back from a vote last meeting and we did what we could."
