Karen Garcia |
On March 24-25, students will vote on Resolution 14-03 in addition to voting for ASUP executive board candidates. The constitutional amendment proposes the addition of a student body nondiscrimination policy to the current ASUP constitution.
Sophomore Joseph Rojo, an ASUP senator, spearheaded the resolution. Rojo said its purpose is to officially recognize the often-ignored identities of students in order to foster the student community’s commitment to inclusiveness.
Rojo was inspired to draft the resolution after reading other universities’ student constitutions and realizing that many of them included nondiscrimination clauses that ASUP’s constitution lacks.
Rojo said Resolution 14-03 aims to reinvigorate the student support of anti-discrimination demonstrated so vibrantly in the “Redefine Purple Pride” campaign of 2013, which fought to include sexual orientation and gender identity in the University’s Nondiscrimination Policy.
Although the campaign succeeded in that the University included sexual orientation to the policy, Rojo noted that other categories, such as gender identity, are still officially unrecognized. He said Resolution 14-03 is meaningful because it represents a student pledge to acceptance of identities where the administration falls short.
As a Mexican-American student, Rojo said he’s felt sidelined at times—but that although his ethnic background isn’t always celebrated, it’s not trivialized in the way other minority identities are.
“Nobody’s going to say that I’m not really Mexican, that it’s just a phase I’m going through,” Rojo said. “Meanwhile, identities such as gender identity are still very much disregarded on a societal level.”
In addition to gender identity and expression, the resolution’s nondiscrimination clause includes genetic information, veteran status, gender expression, religion, socioeconomic status, and documentation status.
ASUP senator freshman Justin Low, one of the three sponsors of Resolution 14-03, was initially attracted to supporting it because of his own status as a racial minority on campus, and from hearing reports of students who felt disenfranchised.
After seeing how other student constitutions contributed attitudes of nondiscrimination toward varying student identities, Low said he realized how complex the idea of diversity was.
“Identities other than race or gender were never something I’d really thought of before when thinking about diversity,” Low said. “It made me see how important more inclusive language is.”
Although some may view Resolution 14-03 as mostly symbolic, Rojo said the act of students recognizing the reality of other students on an official document helps create a space where people feel safe and welcome.
“Now, if (recognition of a wider range of identities) is something the current University administration doesn’t want to do right now, so be it,” Rojo said. “But let’s start a dialogue again and restart Redefine Purple Pride to continue its goal and mission.”
Karen Garcia is a reporter for The Beacon. She can be reached at garciak17@up.edu.
