At its Wednesday meeting, Duke Student Government Senate passed a resolution supporting the right to protest of Duke Students and Workers in Solidarity, the group currently occupying the Allen Building and demanding better conditions for workers on campus.
Senior Jay Sullivan and sophomores Riyanka Ganguly, Jeremy Gottlieb and Alice Reed, all senators for equity and outreach, presented the resolution. The resolution was amended during debate to clarify that the support is for the students’ right to protest, not the students themselves or what they are protesting. Executive Vice President John Guarco, a junior, recused his responsibilities as executive vice president to junior Ilana Weisman, executive vice president-elect, in order to participate in the debate. In a roll call vote, Senate voted to pass the resolution 29-8.
“We support student activists. We support Duke Students and Workers in Solidarity and their fundamental right to protest,” Ganguly said.
Some senators were concerned that the resolution would be interpreted as the Senate supporting the views of specific students or certain political groups on campus. Ganguly disagreed with that assessment.
“We are just saying a blanket statement like DSG Executive Board did,” Ganguly said, referring to the public statement made by the Executive Board last weekend.
After a debate about what level of amnesty for protestors senators would support, the decided to support academic amnesty rather than unconditional amnesty.
Eight senators and one vice president abstained on this vote. Of those that abstained, seven are running for office.
When asked if he abstained because of the upcoming elections, freshman Josh Curtis, senator for academic affairs, who is running for sophomore senator for academic affairs, responded that he did not.
“It is not DSG’s position to be passing something in support of particular group,” Curtis said. “I think that passing it harms the ability to actually do something on policy. DSG’s position to be a policy advocate, not a group advocate.”
The Senate also voted to reject a Senate restructuring plan proposed by Weisman and junior Basil Seif, senator for residential life. This plan would allow senators to work flexibly with multiple committees, in addition to the committee they were selected for.
Opponents of the plan stated that senators already have the ability to move around different committees. The chief concern of opponents to the plan was that it would lower senator productivity.
Additionally, senior Nikhil Gavai, chair of the Student Organization Funding Committee, presented the annual budget for student organizations in 2016-17. The presentation was a preliminary look at the budget, which the Senate will be voting on in its next two meetings. Last year, $800,000 was requested and SOFC gave out $420,000, Gavai said. He explained that this year $900,000 was requested and the plan is to give groups approximately $380,000.
“We want to be placing more money in the programming fund than the annual budget,” Gavai said, noting that the programming fund allows for more students to be engaged in events around campus.
The programming fund allows student groups to fund events open to the student body, and the annual budget allocates money to student groups for private events such as competitions and conferences.
Finally, the Senate heard a presentation from the Social Culture Committee, led by senior Bryan Dinner, vice president of that committee, on an examination of Duke’s disciplinary system. In its report, the committee found that Duke’s conduct policies have been more strictly enforced since 2007, without input from students and other relevant stakeholders. The report also shows that compared to Harvard University and Brown University, Duke has handled more cases. The report hopes to guide dialogue among students, faculty and administrators on disciplinary issues, the committee said.
According to the attendance roll call at the end of the meeting, five senators and one vice president left early.
In other business:
Senate unanimously voted to pass a resolution to congratulate Villanova University for winning the men’s basketball national championship against the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
The Senate approved a surplus budgetary statue for $11,400 to the Office of Information Technology for the purchase of eprint machines. DSG plans to poll students to determine the areas with the highest demand for new printers. The Senate also passed a budgetary statute allocating $10,415 for the free food truck rodeo being held next week.
Senate unanimously approved a new SOFC group, League of Legends.
The Senate also decided to uphold the Financial Oversight and Appeals Committee’s decision to not fund programs by the International Association and the Duke Chinese Association.
Correction: This article was updated Thursday afternoon to reflect that no location for the new printers has been specified yet.
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Class of 2019
Editor-in-chief 2017-18,
Local and national news department head 2016-17
Born in Hyderabad, India, Likhitha Butchireddygari moved to Baltimore at a young age. She is pursuing a Program II major entitled "Digital Democracy and Data" about the future of the American democracy.