Atrocities of the TCU Senate

On April 4, the Students for Intellectual Diversity, a subgroup of the Tufts Republicans, presented the Tufts Academic Bill of Rights to the Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate, seeking their support in the form of a resolution. This bill, based off Students for Academic Freedom's (SAF) Academic Bill of Rights, is a non-partisan document which outlines the necessary commitments of the University to "secure the intellectual independence of faculty and students and to protect the principle of intellectual diversity."

In short, the bill stipulates the following: students are not to be graded based on their ideologies, curricula in humanities and social sciences should represent a variety of viewpoints, professors may not use the classroom as a soapbox for their own ideologies, speaker selection and fund allocation must promote ideological diversity, and ideology must not be taken into account in hiring practices and when considering tenure. A full-text of the Tufts Academic Bill of Rights is available in the April 8th issue of The Primary Source.

In a cowardly move, the TCU Senate not only failed to pass a resolution regarding the Tufts Academic Bill of Rights, but refused to even consider it on what it claimed to be constitutional grounds. TCU President Chike Aguh contended that since a congressman has introduced a version of SAF's Academic Bill of Rights to a congressional sub-committee, the TCU constitution forbids the Senate from discussing the Tufts Academic Bill of Rights. When asked to point out where in the TCU constitution this appears, Aguh deferred to senate parliamentarian Dave Baumwoll, who named Article II Section A Part 1 of the TCU constitution. Baumwoll was then asked to highlight the actual wording that would render Aguh's claim true, but a bumbling Baumwoll was unable to do so as he weakly cried, "but it's in the spirit of the constitution!"

Let's consider the TCU constitution. Article II, Section A, Part 1 states that "the members of the Tufts Community Union Senate shall represent the needs and interests of the TCU, as a whole or the constituent groups thereof, before the faculty of the undergraduate colleges, the administration, and the Trustees of Tufts College" (emphasis added). It is the duty of the TCU senate to represent the needs of the students, not its privilege to shirk on them. Nowhere does it state that if a TCU concern happens to also be of a concern to some congressman, that therefore the Senate cannot pass a resolution regarding that concern.

Of course, our senators acknowledged that since the constitution says nothing about the national arena, they couldn't so easily weasel out of voting on the Bill. So, our crafty senators devised a cop-out: "We act in the spirit of the constitution." I pose this question to every senator who voted against overruling Aguh's decision: in what way does this phantom "spirit" of the constitution enable senators to act contrary to the written words of this same document? The constitution requires senators to represent their constituents, but they have instead chosen not to do so on constitutional grounds that don't exist!

Aguh, as chair of the senate, made the executive decision for the governing body not to exercise their right vote on the bill. Even though he mentioned that the Senate could overturn his decision, he more or less dared the Senate to oppose him. This is the same senate that had turned in their papers for re-election only hours prior, many of whom were nervous about pissing off influential people, costing themselves precious votes.

TCU freshman senator Brody Hale objected to overturning Aguh's decision because, "in the national government chairs make decisions and Chike is our chair and I ask you all to unite with me and support his decision." Let's be thankful that Mr. Hale never served under Adolf Hitler's command, or by his logic he'd ask the TCU senate to unite with him and stand by The F??hrer's genocide of ten million people since, after all, Hitler was chair. Perhaps Senator Hale has never before been made aware of the dangers of following political authority.

Notably, the only TCU senators with the balls to speak out against Aguh's authoritative abuse were freshmen Andrew Caplan, Harish Perkari, and Simon Sassenberg. Only four other senators had the backbone to vote simply for their right to vote: Freshmen Mike Abare, Jamil Ludd, and sophomore John Valentine. Ironically, Abare and Ludd are not seeking re-election, and Valentine ran uncontested. The remainder of the senate either actively supported Aguh's blatant disrespect for the constitution, or abetted it by abstaining from the vote.

Imagine, for a moment, that Aguh's constitutional fabrications were true. If, indeed, the constitution stated that the TCU Senate must refrain from discussing national policy, then the senate would be prohibited from passing a resolution denouncing or supporting the War on Iraq. For the same reason, the senate could not debate the merits of Don't Ask, Don't Tell. There's no contention there -- neither of these issues have anything to do with Tufts University or administrative policy, and is therefore not the business of the senate. But, the issue of the Tufts Academic Bill of Rights is no different than the recent resolution regarding assigning academic credit to ROTC courses -- they concern the University and the University only. The scope of the Tufts Academic Bill of Rights begins and ends at Tufts University. Congress is not looking to pass the Tufts Academic Bill of Rights, and the TCU senate was not asked to pass a resolution regarding congressional actions.

It is important that freshmen support the senators that will really speak on their behalf, and not let one person's abuse of power reconstruct the TCU constitution.

Adam Hoffman is a sophomore majoring in Computer Science and Economics.