GAPSA to spurn Colo. convention

Graduate students voted last night to boycott this year's National Association of Graduate-Professional Students in Colorado because of the state's recent amendment repealing anti-discrimination laws for gays, lesbians and bisexuals. At a Graduate and Professional Student Assembly meeting, graduate students expressed concern that they would be supporting the state's economy by attending the meeting and spending money in Colorado. GAPSA members voted almost unanimously for the boycott. On election day last November, Colorado residents passed a referendum forbidding Colorado's cities and its state legislature from passing anti-discrimination protection laws for homosexuals and bisexuals. It also voided existing protective legislation in Aspen, Boulder and Denver. Before voting for the boycott, Graduate Student Associations Council chairperson Michelle Grimm said she worried that "by boycotting [the meeting] we're not only boycotting Colorado but boycotting the NAGPS executive board." But students stressed that the boycott would be an economic boycott of Colorado, and not a boycott of the NAGPS board. "We may want to make it clear that we're not going to physically be there," GAPSA member Susan Garfinkle said. Garfinkle said that University students tend "to be a lot more of a progressive voice in the [NAGPS] organization," and that their absence may eliminate a more liberal element from the conference. Many students said they hoped that a compromise can be reached by holding a teleconference with the NAGPS board. Some students said that some good could come out of attending the conference, adding they would be able to participate in anti-discrimination protests. NAGPS officials told conference participants that the meeting would not be moved from Colorado but told them they could participate in the protests. "Since the conference is going to happen anyway, and one thing on the agenda would be the protest, it may be a good idea for people from here to go and take part in the protest," medical student Jonathan Maltzman said. But GAPSA member Anne Cubilie said that "people are tired of tiny little protests . . . the political impact is going to be about nil." Cubilie suggested that GAPSA donate the money they were going to spend on the conference to the Coalition to Fight Amendment Two. Grimm added that all groups who had decided to boycott the meeting would be mentioned at the beginning of the meeting so that their reasons for not attending would be clear. Graduate student Michael Goldstein, who was just elected president of NAGPS services, said he is "not psyched" that he must attend. "I have an official responsibility which supercedes my own riches," Goldstein said. But, he added, "People have to take a moral stance and I think they made the right choice."

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