Student government is, and should be, based on democratic ideals. The Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate and its membership are clear examples of this. The vast majority of these members are elected by the student body; a handful are "culture representatives" who are elected by minority groups such as Tufts Transgender Lesbian Gay Bisexual Collective (TTLGBC), commuter students, and other groups. Recently, it has been proposed that a women's culture representative, elected by the Tufts' Feminist Alliance (TFA), be added. This goes completely against both reason and democratic ideals and should not be implemented. It is not a question of liberal or conservative, but a question of logic and definitions. Either the culture representative is designed to represent females at Tufts, or it is designed to represent feminists at Tufts. In neither of these situations should the position be created.
First, let us examine the possibility that the women's representative is supposed to speak for all female students at Tufts. Its very existence is then unnecessary, as the Tufts student body is 53 percent female. This is not an under-represented minority; it is, in fact, the majority.
Female Tufts students do not face either legal or de facto disenfranchisement. They are able to vote or run for office just as easily as male students are. Even TFA co-chair Abagail Moffat stated in her viewpoint, (Students suggest culture rep for women, 12/7) that the issue at hand is not the lack of female representatives in the Senate (there are currently seven), but the lack of representation of "women's issues" also known as feminist issues.
It is clear that the women's representative is not intended to simply represent the female students at Tufts. So let us consider the possibility that the women's representative is supposed to speak specifically for feminists at Tufts. This situation is completely inappropriate, as feminism is a political/cultural view, not an identity. Many feminists at Tufts are not female and many females at Tufts are not feminists. Having a fixed culture representative for a political ideology is unacceptable. It is equivalent to having a "culture rep" for the Student Labor Action Movement (SLAM), Students for a Free Tibet, or the Tufts Republicans.
If some students feel that there is not enough representation of feminist viewpoints in the TCU Senate at the moment, there is a simple solution. It is not an additional culture representative. It is voting. Nothing bars people with feminist views from running for the regular Senate seats. Nothing bars Tufts feminists from voting for those candidates. Nothing bars feminists from advertising the merits of certain candidates they support and bringing swing voters over to their side.
The critical factor in this debate is not the short-term goals; it is the long-term precedents that will be set. The short-term goal of setting up a women's culture representative is to sway certain votes, primarily those dealing with conflicts such as the TFA versus Delta Tau Delta (DTD) and Iris Halpern versus The Primary Source.
The long-term effects, though, are much broader. They imply that certain political views deserve to have votes above and beyond the votes they secure through democratic channels. This is a travesty against the very idea of a student senate. Perhaps this would be more obvious if the political organization requesting a "culture representative" were Tufts Republicans instead of the TFA. Either way, the answer is obvious. A political agenda, no matter how "under-represented," does not receive non-democratic benefits over any other political agenda.
Consider a different organization of representative democracy of why the proposed change is inappropriate, for example, the United States Congress. During the Clinton administration, the Congress had a Republican majority. Did Democrats or any other political parties (such as the Green Party or the Libertarian Party) support the creation of seats that were not elected by the United States populace, just so they could have more voting power in short-term decision-making?
Of course not! They knew that if they wanted their agendas to be better represented, they would have to simply win more seats in the next election. For the Democrats, this worked. By running better candidates, capturing swing voters, and getting more of their supporters into the voting booths, the Democrats won back the majority. Other groups such as the Green Party and the Libertarian Party didn't receive more seats, because the vast majority of voters did not support their agendas. This is the fate of radical groups - liberal or conservative - in a representative democracy.
The statement that feminist political views are poorly represented in the TCU Senate is not one that I contest. It is obvious that the majority of senators do not side with the TFA on certain decisions. What I disagree with is the TFA's proposed solution. Destroying the principles of representative democracy merely to secure another vote in the Senate is unacceptable.
Feminists need only do one thing if they want to be represented better: VOTE. Indeed, if TFA secures widespread support for their candidates in the next election, they can control not just one seat in the senate, but many. On the other hand, if their candidates are unable to win over voters, then they will not control any seats. This is how representative democracy works. This is how it should work. I hope this is how it will continue to work at Tufts.
Eric Mitton is a junior majoring in history.
