The City College Associated Student Government Constitution states that ASG is supposed to represent student interests in the operation of the college, promote cultural and ethnic diversity to the entire college community and provide services and activities for the entire student body.
It appears that ASG dropped the ball when they voted for an anti-abortion group to set up an exhibit as part of the recent ASG planned Constitution Day, a day which was supposed to educate students on campus about the importance of the U.S. Constitution.
The problem isn’t so much the controversial and disturbing images that were on display, which included mangled fetuses, and lynching and Holocaust iconography. This campus is open to the public and, according to City College Dean of Operations Gregory Hayman, the anti-abortion group had the right to be on campus. The problem is that the exhibit was approved as part of the Constitution Day schedule by ASG without any inclusion of differing viewpoints. By doing this, ASG negated a whole segment of the campus population who held opposing views about what was being presented.
ASG Vice President Debbie Dixon says that when ASG voted for the Constitution Day events, many members were unclear about the details relating to the anti-abortion exhibit, because it was billed on the schedule as the Genocide Awareness Project, a group affiliated with the Sanctity of Human Life Network. Dixon also says the voting body was provided no background information on the GAP by ASG President and creator of the City College Republicans club Steve Macias or commissioner of student affairs Monica Guzman, who Dixon says was in charge of the scheduled events.
In a statement released Sept. 17, Macias denied taking part in the Student Affairs Committee that handled the event’s planning. Guzman says, though this is true, the committee only planned the events which took place from noon to 1 p.m. and that Macias was ultimately responsible for bringing the GAP on campus and placing them on the agenda.
Even if the ASG members were fuzzy on the details regarding the anti-abortion exhibit, that does not excuse its unanimous passage into the schedule with no venue for other views. Is it so unreasonable to expect student government members to know what exactly it is they’re voting on? Hopefully ASG has learned that not knowing what it is voting on is far from representing students’ interests. Dixon, to her credit, apologized for her vote Sept. 17 during the Constitution Day event.
It should be noted that the ASG vote on the Constitution Day schedule occurred Sept. 2 and that many ASG positions were filled Sept. 9, seven days after the vote. The new ASG members did not partake in the vote.
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