05/24/2013
More on what is happening in Wisconsin and how it is a threat to democratic institutions that students created:
"Now, I don’t consider campus referenda sacrosanct, and I certainly think there’s something to be said for empowering student governments to control student activity fee money directly. I don’t have any objection in principle to a rule that would, for instance, grant a student government the authority to override a campus referendum under certain circumstances. And I certainly believe that state student associations have an obligation to maintain good relations with member student governments, too — it’s quite possible that some or all of the responsibility for the breakdown in the relationship between the Eau Claire student senate and statewide United Council leadership rests with UC.
But that’s not what’s happening here. What’s happening here is a state legislature and a student government seeking to destroy a democratically empowered and elected student association because they don’t like the outcomes of the democratic process that the university itself created."
Last night brought startling news for friends of student involvement in university governance in the United States, as a Republican-controlled budget committee of the Wisconsin state legislature mo...