Mohamed Hassan, a student government senator at Southern Illinois University, stormed out of a meeting Oct. 16 and subsequently resigned in protest of the Senate’s decision to table a resolution against possible military action in Iraq.
Such debate over larger political issues is not unusual for the Southern Illinois student government. But at Northwestern, Associated Student Government senators said they prefer to limit themselves to strictly university-related issues, avoiding such hot political questions.
The Southern Illinois resolution later failed when brought to a vote at a regularly scheduled Senate meeting Wednesday.
Hassan had not written the resolution but was one of several senators sponsoring the bill.
“I respect his right to voice his opinion,” said Neal Young, vice president of the Senate at Southern Illinois. “But I think the way he went about it was somewhat inappropriate for a place of civil discourse.”
Although Wednesday’s meeting was filled with students speaking both in favor and in opposition to the resolution, Young said that the bill’s language, not its political stance, led to its defeat.
“A lot of people felt that there was a lot of extemporaneous language (in the resolution),” he said.
An incident with a similar piece of legislation occurred here last year, said NU College Republicans Sen. Matt Hall, a Communication sophomore.
Last year, ASG received a bill protesting a line of clothing that Abercrombie and Fitch had released that portrayed a stereotype of Asian Americans, Hall said.
In the past, however, the rules committee has interpreted the ASG’s constitution’s second article as limiting Senate’s role to discussing and legislating only on student issues that arise because of the individuals’ status as a student, not students’ concerns with politics and world affairs, Hall said.
The text of the second article states: “It shall be the role of the ASG to provide a senatorial forum for the communication of student concerns; to present those concerns to the faculty, administration, alumni, and community of Northwestern University.”
“The Rules Committee struck (the Abercrombie and Fitch resolution) down as unconstitutional because it didn’t relate to students in their role as students,” said Hall, who was a member of the committee at the time.
College Democrats Sen. Jason Lake agreed that legislating on concerns outside NU was not the job of ASG.
“The general stance that ASG takes is that we don’t try to take a political stance.” Lake said.
Lake pointed out that the requirement of two-thirds of the senators’ support to pass resolutions ensures that they represent the opinion of a vast majority of students.
Given the current interpretation of the ASG constitution, however, such a bill would not even be brought to a vote, Hall said.
