Campus council protocol is on the brink of a change that may cause candidates to think twice about campaign tactics.
After the 2010 Columbia College Student Council’s Clear Party posted flyers that members of several campus groups found offensive, the Clear Party and the groups convened on Monday afternoon with Interim Associate Dean of Student Affairs and Senior Assistant Dean of Multicultural Affairs Melinda Aquino, Executive Director of Student Affairs and Activities Robert Taylor, and representatives of the CCSC Elections Board. The groups voiced their perspectives and discuss ways to revise the Elections Board constitution. Though the meeting was closed to the press, participants said that they agreed on four main amendments to current campaign procedures. A joint statement was drafted between the Clear Party and the representatives of student groups present at the meeting.
“I think everyone at today’s meeting demonstrated the strength of our community and the willingness of everyone to have an honest discussion of things,” James Bogner, CC ’10 and chairman of the Elections Board, said of Tuesday’s meeting.
The misunderstanding between the Clear Party and the student groups—which included Lucha, the Columbia Queer Alliance, Students for a Democratic Society, the Chicano Caucus, the United Students of Color Council, Take Back the Night, and Proud Colors—began with the flyers, that read, “Two Asian girls at the same time,” alluding to the party’s two female Asian candidates. In response to these posters, Samantha Stanton, CC ’09 and a member of Proud Colors, and David Zhou, CC ’10 and a member of the political committee of the Asian American Alliance, separately contacted the Clear Party. Stanton and Zhou drafted a statement last Wednesday expressing their “concern” about the poster’s sexual innuendo and contacted members of groups who also took offense and signed the statement.
“The statement was about clarifying where we’re coming from, rather than attacking the Clear Party,” Stanton said.
Members of the Clear Party explained that they had discussed the posters’ statements with numerous students before posting them.
“It was never our intention to offend anyone with our flyers,” Cliff Massey, CC ’10 and class of 2010 president-elect of the Clear Party said. “But even if a majority of people weren’t offended, the fact that some people were means that we need to reexamine the way content is treated.”
Members of student groups explained that they took offense, some saying that they interpreted the posters as accentuating the “objectification and festishizing of women.”
“We get that it was supposed to be a joke, but the fact that these sorts of jokes are able to pass the Elections Board for approval is a problem,” Johanna Ocaña, CC ’10 and chair of Lucha, said. “By signing on to the statement, we were not hoping to personally attack the members of Clear 2010, but rather question the process by which these flyers were accepted.”
At the meeting, Stanton and Zhou presented the statement to the Clear Party, and the statement was co-signed by members of the groups mentioned above. Aquino and Taylor served as facilitators while Bogner and Brenden Cline, CC ’11 and secretary of the Elections Board, presented ways to revamp and clarify the CCSC Constitution.
The Constitution changes will be refined before being enacted for future elections. The Elections Board—with input from the Clear Party, Stanton, Zhou, and other campus group members—will elucidate the wording of the constitution by explicitly stating what constitutes “appropriate content for candidates” in the process of the elections. Attendees agreed to add a statement to the candidates’ contract acknowledging that candidates are representatives of the student body and must remain sensitive to a variety of backgrounds. They also discussed ways to incorporate “the discussion of the role as a student council representative” into the mandatory council information meetings. The fourth component of the meeting was the drafting of a joint statement explaining why the attendees agreed that the posters were problematic and what sort of responsibilities should be expected from the student council.
Students predicted that the changes proposed at the meeting will positively affect the councils and student groups.
“Even before this meeting, we were discussing the need for the rules of the CCSC to change, and I think this is going to be a really positive way for us to do that and change them to something really meaningful,” Massey said. “We hope that we can prevent what we considered an oversight by using the situation as an example for future candidates.”
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