Sometimes conservatives need a safe space, too.
Or at least that was the message - and eventual decision – at this weekend’s United States Student Association Student Congress in Boulder, Colo.
Conservative students from several western states sought a constitutional amendment that would have created conservative and liberal caucuses within USSA, which has a broadly progressive agenda of expanding access to higher education and is composed of caucuses based on racial and sexual identity.
Each caucus then would have had voting members on the board of directors.
University students in attendance said the amendment, which needed the support of two-thirds of the students present, was too ideological and inappropriate for a non-partisan advocacy group.
“It will only create division,” ASUO Multicultural Advocate Diego Hernandez said, summing up one of the arguments against creating the caucuses.
After what those in attendance said was nearly two hours of debate plus several breaks to let everyone cool down, and more than 10 amendments, the conservatives came away with a weakened compromise. First members voted against having a liberal caucus, according to Twitter updates from David Howard Barrow, the president of Australia’s National Union of Students.
Conservatives didn’t get a caucus either, but rather a “space,” “a location to go and talk and (then) take issues to their respective caucuses,” ASUO Legislative Affairs Coordinator Rachel Cushman said. The arrangement also allows conservatives to propose administrative changes.
Variations of the term “safe space” are frequently invoked in campus politics. In January, 2007-08 Student Senate President Athan Papailiou’s nomination to fill a vacant seat resulted in protracted debate about Papailiou’s fiscal conservatism and whether his policy preferences resulted in discrimination against marginalized groups.
Carina Miller, a former senator and presidential candidate who was re-elected to USSA’s board of directors this weekend, was quoted at the time as saying, “There are other people who don’t feel like it’s a safe place when there are senators like Athan at the table.”
Former Sen. Derek Nix, a conservative ally of Papailiou, responded: “I don’t think Athan is really considering this a safe spot right now.”
It seems a similar debate played out this weekend in Boulder. Some self-identified liberals supported giving conservatives a space; some self-identified conservatives thought having a caucus was unnecessary. After four hours of debating and recessing, both sides seemed satisfied.
Kailei Higginson, political director of the Colorado Foundation of College Republicans, tweeted his apprehension about speaking for the measure and that a compromise would be “awesome.” After it passed he wrote, “We have a conservative space in USSA. It’s an exciting time.”
Cushman said she voted for the measure. While she conceded that she did not quite understand the need for one, she said she hoped “that space gives them a place where they can identify and whatnot, and work on issues on issues that affect them.”
And why not? Safe spaces for everybody.
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Conservatives win ‘space’ at USSA
Daily Emerald
July 26, 2009
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