Associated Students adopt peaceful protesting resolution

A resolution in favor of peaceful protesting on university campuses was adopted during Associated Students' Senate meeting on Tuesday, Dec. 6. The resolution was passed with unanimous support.

The information sheet on the resolution states two intended goals. One of which is to thank the university on the students' behalf for the manner in which they handled the student actions from the week of Nov. 18.

The other is to call attention to the reactions to students taking action throughout the state within recent weeks and to encourage continued collaboration with students.

Paul Ramey, executive vice president, provided the background behind the resolution and what brought it before the board.

"The week before Thanksgiving Break was very eventful statewide. There were some really unfortunate consequences to student protests and university and police actions across the state," said Ramey during the meeting, referring to the resolution's stated background that described recent violence at UC Berkeley and UC Davis.

"Simultaneously on our campus, there were student demonstrations that happened almost all week and this was in an effort to recognize and thank the university, the administration, the faculty who were incredibly supportive, and the police who did a great job of being there, but not being imposing," Ramey added.

Ramey then personally gave his thanks to the people in power and expressed his belief that respecting students' rights is important.

"We want to say thank you. We want to bring to light to some degree the actions that happened across the state, and we'd like to also say please let's understand that is something that's the students' right to do," said Ramey.

"To demonstrate on campus, and that it needs to be dealt with appropriately and effectively, and that was the mission and the goal of this resolution," he added.

Jeff Young, senator of student services, drew a favorable comparison between the AS resolution and a similar one passed by Academic Senate.

"I kind of like how this is similar to what the Academic Senate just passed in terms of recognizing the other side of the protest, recognizing people that were watching us and they were recognizing the students who were participating, so I really like this," said Young.

The discussion later turned to adoption of the resolution and potential changes. Ramey expressed his view that the university should be emphasized as a place for protest.

"The only thing that I would add is I would run this by a couple of different members of the faculty. One of the suggestions that we got that I think I might think about is to add a ‘whereas,' highlighting the university as an especially appropriate place to hold student protests," said Ramey.

Dr. Margaret Purser, professor of anthropology, stressed the importance of free speech, especially for those on a campus like Sonoma.

"Universities, of all places, of all institutions, have a special responsibility to respect freedom of speech," said Purser.

"[The Academic Senate] were focused on how we want a responsibility to maintain--the university as a place that should be a bastion of free speech, not protest per se, but freedom of speech," she added.

"The reason why the senators there wanted to use that language, rather than ‘protest,' is one of the great things that happened right before Thanksgiving is that the students who were protesting chose to agree to the terms that the administration and the police had set forward," said Purser.

"Your resolution went straight to citizens' rights. But citizens' rights belong to everyone," she added.

The resolution to support civic engagement was adopted with unanimous support, as well as additional amendments to include the language "public universities are institutions," and to replace language regarding "dealing with student demonstrations" with "approach to student demonstrations."

The full resolution was then adopted by a unanimous vote.