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Students to vote on changes
Despite concerns raised by the mass communications department, and University Chronicle in particular, Student Government will stick with its proposed amendments to the student constitution.
The amendments, ratified by the Student Senate in February, will go before the student body for voting on April 24 and 25, during the general student elections. If the constitution is passed by the students, it will go before SCSU President Roy Saigo for final ratification.
The passage that touched off a storm of controversy pertains to the Student Government's role in controlling managerial and editorial decisions of student media. The current constitution states: "Student-funded media shall not be subject to prior censorship nor shall the allocation process be used as a means of editorial control. Student funded media editors and managers shall not be suspended or removed from their positions during the term of their office except for substantial and compelling reasons and under prescribed procedures. Student media editors and managers shall adhere to all laws relative to the media, and to professional journalistic standards."
In the constitution ratified by the Student Senate, only the first sentence of that passage remains. This omission caused some concern among the student media, as some wondered at the Student Government's intention in removing limits to its own power with regard to the student media.
Yorgun Marcel, chair of the Constitutional Review Committee, tried to clarify the issue last week.
"We didn't want to have any confusion over what we can and can't do with regards to the student media," said Marcel. "With the changes, we clearly outline what we can do. If we left the other parts in, there might be some confusion over what we can't do, so we just decided to take it out."
Marcel also pointed out Article 6E section 2, at the end of the proposed constitution, which states that SCSU's constitution can not have any amendments or clauses that are in conflict with the United States, Minnesota, or Minnesota State Universities and Colleges constitutions.
The MnSCU constitution repeats almost word for word the passage that was removed from the SCSU constitution. Marcel said that the intention was not to delete the passage in order to supersede the MnSCU policy.
"The passage is already in MnSCU's constitution and we have to follow that," Marcel said last week. "We removed the passage because it was repetitive and caused confusion about what our role was. I understand how people might worry about (the passage's) absence, but we thought since we had no control over (removing student media managers and editors), we would clarify that by taking the passage out."
In response to Marcel's assertion last week that the changes were made to the constitution in order to clarify and remove things that were repetitive, members of the student media asked why the student constitution was needed at all if it was simply a repetition of the MnSCU constitution.
"There are things within the SCSU constitution that are specific to SCSU, and especially to SCSU Student Government," Marcel said. "Most of the changes we made to the constitution are based on internal, Student Government issues, and so we were surprised that (University Chronicle) chose this issue to focus on."
Marcel added that it was never the Student Government's intention to change its role in student media.
"I was an editor and reporter at California State-Domingas Hills, and I am all for student funded, student run, student owned media," he said. "That means that the media will have to be accountable to the students. That does not mean I think that people in the Student Government should be able to dictate what the media does because it gets angry over a story or doesn't like a certain issue."
Diana Burlison, Student Government's adviser and associate vice president for administrative affairs, said that Student Government had not changed the constitution in order to have more control over the media.
"From what they have told me, the changes were made to remove the redundancies and the conflicts with the MnSCU constitution," she said.
Both Burlison and Marcel expressed concern that University Chronicle's initial coverage was incomplete. Certain members of University Chronicle staff reciprocated concerns that the passage's removal was unnecessary, and would rather see the passage remain to ensure media rights.
With both sides having aired their concerns extensively in University Chronicle, and on KVSC, all that is left is the final vote by the student body, coming up in a few weeks. Marcel is calling the changes to the constitution cosmetic, and an attempt to make it more legible and streamlined, while Leslie Andres of University Chronicle has said that the changes are the wrong way to go about promoting an autonomous media. He also said that almost the entire document should be "thrown out the window" if Marcel's logic was followed, as most of the sections are repetitive of a superceding document.
Marcel has counted by pointing out the numerous clauses in the constitution that are specific to SCSU and SCSU governance.
Jake Zisla can be reached at: [email protected]
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