Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Student Rights Committee chair Mason Heilman will address full Senate tonight about a committee meeting that was held last week in violation of Senate Rules and Regulations.
When Senate committees met Oct. 24, the Student Rights Committee moved into a closed forum and asked all non-voting members of the committee and members of the media to leave.
According to Article III of Student Senate Rules and Regulations, all official business of Student Senate must be open to the public.
“I allowed it to happen because I was being told by people in the room that it was fine,” Heilman, Lawrence sophomore, said. “I didn’t know better.”
Thursday, Student Body president Hannah Love and vice president Ray Wittlinger sent a letter to Heilman to inform him that the meeting was in violation of rules and regulations. In the letter, they asked him to “maintain a sense of decorum in the Rights Committee while always seeing to it that Rules and Regulations are upheld.”
"According to Article III of Student Senate Rules and Regulations, all official business of Student Senate must be open to the public."
The letter also expressed concern that the meeting may have violated the Kansas Open Meetings Act, which said that all meetings of groups that are supported in whole or in part by public funds must be open to the public.
Kay Johnson, director of the American Civil Liberties Union for Kansas and Western Missouri, said that whether Student Senate violated the Kansas Open Meetings Act depended on whether they were considered an administrative body by the state.
“Law or no law I would hope that wouldn’t be something Student Senate would do,” Wittlinger, Olathe sophomore, said.
Heilman said a committee member moved to go into a closed forum after the Student Rights’ Committee completed the items on the regular meeting agenda. He said that members used the closed forum to discuss the tuition sponsorships that are received by the student body president, vice-president, treasurer, legislative director and the Graduate Professional Association’s executive director, communications coordinator and finance director.
Emily Williams, Overland Park senior and secretary of the Student Rights Committee, said that minutes were not recorded during the closed session of the meeting.
Adam McGonigle, Wichita sophomore and Student Senate Executive Committee chair, said that most voting members of the Student Rights’ Committee who stayed in the room during the closed forum did not know that they were violating rules.
“The vast majority of people in that room were not ill-intentioned,” McGonigle said. “When the vote happened to go into a closed committee, people did not know what was going on.”
Wittlinger said that Heilman would not be reprimanded further than the letter he was sent last week.
Wittlinger also said that he was disappointed that other veteran members of the Student Rights’ Committee did not follow the rules.
“There are members of that committee who preach about accountability more than anyone else,” Wittlinger said. “It blows me away that those same people would move into a closed session.”
Wittlinger said that he planned to use the meeting as an opportunity to educate Senate members about the Student Senate rules and state laws regarding closed meetings.
— Edited by Luke Morris
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Comments
Senator to address violations
Wittlinger, Olathe sophomore???
Good work Kansan!
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