An unexpected decision by the ASUO’s judicial branch to radically realign the seats on the Student Senate has those in the student government’s other two branches considering their options for challenging the ruling.
The new system abolishes the principle underlying the old allocation of the 10 academic Senate seats: that one senator represents the students in each undergraduate college, with the exception of the College of Arts and Sciences, the University’s largest, which has three different senators. Instead, the Constitution Court aimed to assign each seat as close as possible to one-tenth of the University’s students, regardless of the college in which they study.
The ruling is set to take effect in the upcoming April election.
So, for instance, seven different seats will represent at least some students from the College of Arts and Sciences. Four different colleges are represented by one of the new academic seats. Students in the pre-business major, the University’s largest discipline, will have theirown senator.
The five-member Constitution Court serves as the ASUO’s rough equivalent to the Supreme Court. Composed mostly of law students appointed by the ASUO president and confirmed by the Senate, it rules on internal complaints and interprets the ASUO’s extensive, and at times confusing, set of rules. Reapportioning Senate seats is also among its duties, and must be done once every two years.
In their ruling, the court’s members wrote that the existing seats are imbalanced. With 21,681 ASUO fee-paying students at the University, each of the 10 senators should represent approximately one-tenth of the student body, or 2,168 students. Only three of the current seats fall within this range that the court deems acceptable.
In its opinion on the subject, the court attempted to explain its decision to make the
divisions it did.
“Taking the 748 students in the business administration program from the Business Administration seat and mixing them with the Journalism/Public Relations seat would place both seats within the threshold range,” the court wrote. “But there is relatively little in common between those disciplines.”
The court compared that situation to creating a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives to represent the four largest cities in Oregon and Modesto, Calif.
“The Oregon voters would vastly outnumber the California voters, potentially rendering them a nullity,” the court wrote. “Even if the representative worked diligently on behalf of the interests of all five cities, there is the potential of an appearance of bias on behalf of the larger segment of the voters.”
Senate President Nick Gower said parts of the reallocation still violated those principles.
“On that same note, business administration doesn’t have a lot to do with architecture and the allied arts,” whose students now share a seat with business administration students. He also questioned parts of the ruling that separate pre-major students from the rest of
their colleges.
Senators had been under the impression that the Senate could challenge the court’s ruling if four-fifths of Senators voted to do so. But the ASUO’s rules contain no such provision, so the Senate will instead attempt to change the ruling through dialogue with the court.
ASUO Senate seats: a breakdown
In the current allocation of the 10 academic Senate seats, each seat represents students in one University college, with a few exceptions.
One senator each represents students in the Lundquist College of Business, the College of Education, and the School of Journalism and Communication. Students in the Community Education Program are represented by the education senator.
Undergraduates whose majors are listed as undeclared are also represented by a senator. There is one Senate seat to represent students in the School of Architecture and Allied Arts, the School of Music and Dance, and the psychology department.
Graduate and law students share two senate seats.
The College of Arts and Sciences is represented by three different Senate seats, each with a separate constituency. Students majoring in the sciences are represented by one senator, while those majoring in social science are divided by major between two others.
Under the new re-allocation, graduate and law students have separate representatives.
Undeclared students still have their own senator. One senator represents exclusively students in the pre-business major.
Among the remaining seats, students in the School of Architecture and Allied Arts have their own Senate seat, which they share with students majoring in business administration.
Students in the education and music schools share their representative with seven majors from the College of Arts and Sciences and three from the journalism school, termed the “literature studies” seat. Students majoring in mathematics share their representative with three more majors from the journalism school and students majoring in accounting and chemistry.
One seat represents “life sciences” and another “history studies.” Another seat represents students majoring in foreign languages, those majoring in psychology, and those in the Community Education Program.
[email protected]