Council continues to delay decision on seat for UMC

United Minorities Council leaders said the Undergraduate Assembly seats don't adequately serve minority student needs. Stephanie Cooperman Two years after the issue first came up at a University Council meeting, the question of whether to assign the United Minorities Council a permanent seat on the advisory body remains a tangled one. The UMC and its supporters have argued at Council that the student seats allocated to the Undergraduate Assembly do not adequately represent minority interests before Council, which is charged with advising the president and provost on campus affairs. Council has heard various proposals to establish a permanent UMC seat, but hasn't brought the question to a vote recently. Last March, further decisions on the UMC's proposed seat were handed over to Council committees on pluralism and student activities. UA Chairperson Tal Golomb, a College junior, said the two committees assigned to report on the proposal had not yet handed in their decision to Council. He declined to speculate as to the reasons for the delay. But UMC Chairperson Susie Lee said the committees voted unanimously to recommend granting the UMC a seat on Council. The College senior added that the Council seat would be helpful in getting the voices of minority students heard on campus. "As a minority, it's really frustrating the whole way that the seat on Council has been pushed aside," Lee said. "At the same time it makes us more adamant about getting a seat and being more aggressive," she added. Golomb said giving the UMC its own seat on Council would unfairly favor minority opinions over those of other students. "I have not changed my opinion that no undergraduate organization should be given a seat," he said. Since last March, the UMC seat has not appeared on any Council agenda. "Apparently, the [University Council] doesn't want to have any controversial issues," Lee said. Until spring 1994, the Undergraduate Assembly unofficially gave the UMC one of its 10 Council seats, complete with voting privileges. Any UA member may run for one of the body's seats on Council, with elections held at the same time as general UA elections in the spring and fall. When the UA received five additional seats in 1994, members proposed giving the UMC an official seat without holding an election. But Council ruled that the UA's request breached the body's bylaws. Only UA members may fill the group's seats, so the UA cannot allocate an automatic seat to the UMC. "It would be ideal to change the bylaws in Council so that the UMC has a permanent seat," Lee said. UMC Vice Chairperson and College sophomore Olivia Troye said Council is "pushing a touchy issue under the rug." Troye said Council is delivering the message that minority affairs don't matter to the University. Most Council members would not comment on that issue. And UA members said they weren't sure how they would vote if the question came up.

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