Senate snubs academic bill of rights proposal

In a surprise move, the Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate chose last night to not discuss the merits of a proposed "Academic Bill of Rights," instead ruling that the proposal was outside the bounds of TCU Senate consideration.

The proposal, created by the Students for Intellectual Diversity -- an offshoot of the Tufts Republicans -- hoped to secure a TCU Senate "commitment to academic freedom and intellectual diversity," to encourage University grading, hiring, and discipline processes to be carried out with no regard to political or ideological beliefs.

Tufts Republicans President Philipp Tsipman delivered the proposal to the Senate's executive board last Wednesday. At last night's meeting, the executive board announced its unanimous decision to not bring the proposal to the full Senate floor.

The "Tufts Academic Bill of Rights" is based largely on the "Academic Bill of Rights" written by David Horowitz and the Students for Academic Freedom.

Horowitz spoke at the University last Thursday night in a Tufts Republicans-sponsored event.

A version of Horowitz's "Academic Bill of Rights" has been introduced as legislation by Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives and was passed by a 41-5 majority in the Georgia State Senate.

A version of the "Academic Bill of Rights," labeled the "Student Bill of Rights," is being considered by several college and university student governments throughout the country, and aspects of it have already been adopted by the University of Montana and the University of Colorado.

It was because the issue is being considered on a national stage that TCU President Chike Aguh and the executive board chose not to have the entire Senate address the issue. The executive board is made up of Aguh, Parliamentarian Dave Baumwoll, TCU Treasurer Josh Belkin, Associate TCU Treasurer Cho Ling, Historian Jeff Katzin, and Vice President Joe Mead.

"We as the TCU cannot put our name on something that is tied to something in the national arena," Aguh said.

The ensuing constitutional debate at last night's meeting centered on Article 2, Section A of the TCU constitution. "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," it reads.

The executive board decided that the issue did not fit the spirit of the wording, "the needs and interests of the TCU," and it felt the Senate was being asked to weigh-in on a national debate.

The Senate in previous years has voted on national and international matters such as the Middle East peace situation.

Some senators felt the executive board had decided on the issue without the consent of the entire Senate. "Our voices as senators were taken away from us," freshman Senator Andrew Caplan said.

TCU Treasurer Josh Belkin said the issues of the proposal would be raised in committees on which senators serve with faculty members. "We're not choosing not to discuss it, we're choosing how it will be discussed," he said.

Tufts Republicans member Jordana Starr suggested the national significance of the proposal was a secondary consideration to the implications for the TCU. "It's entirely independent of anything that could be going on outside of the Tufts community," she said.

Following the discussion, the Senate voted on whether to overturn the executive board's decision and allow the entire Senate to debate the merits of the proposal. Of the 27 voting members of the Senate, 16 voted to uphold the executive board's decision, six voted to overturn it, and five abstained.

Only a two-thirds majority would have overturned the decision.

Following the TCU Senate's decision to not discuss the "Academic Bill of Rights," Tsipman said he "was certainly very surprised that they would violate their role in addressing student concerns."

He said that since last night's meeting was the current TCU Senate's last of the semester, the decision was "especially disappointing."

Tsipman said he will bring up the proposal with the Senate's education committee and the Senate's decision will likely be appealed to the TCU Judiciary (TCUJ).

Neither Starr nor Tufts Republicans member Nick Boyd, both members of the TCUJ, have decided whether or not they would recuse themselves in the case of an appeal vote.

According to Dean of Students Bruce Reitman, had the resolution been passed it would not compel the administration to act.

Reitman said the labeling of the resolution as a bill of rights does not differentiate it from any other Senate resolution. "It doesn't carry any more weight because they're calling it something different," he said.

"The Senate isn't in a place to mandate change," Reitman said. "The curriculum is ultimately in the hands of the faculty."

Reitman said there are already guidelines in place to discipline professors who do not limit their lessons to the course material. "A professor can't use a course in fine arts to be lecturing about politics," he said. "That piece of it has been taken care of."

Another aspect, Reitman said, is whether or not an entire department has a political leaning. In discussions following Horowitz's speech at Tufts Thursday night, students expressed different opinions on perceived biases of several departments to Reitman.

Reitman said this disagreement meant that most students' feelings towards certain departments depend on their perspective.

According to Reitman, who spent his undergraduate years at Tufts, the campus is more conservative now than it was three decades ago. Because the tenure process takes seven years, the faculty cannot change significantly in the four years students are at Tufts.

Therefore, Reitman said, the change in the political environment on campus is too gradual to affect the students bringing about the change. "We've moved to a point where campus dialogue is encouraged to be inclusive of many voices, especially if they are divergent," he said.

Reitman added that "free speech used to be the tool of liberals, and now it's the tool of conservatives."