During this week’s Associated Students of the University of Idaho Senate meeting, on Wednesday, Sept. 30, there was heavy debate on bill F26-R03, acknowledging the WSU students who were called racial slurs inside of the Palouse Place mall.
Newly appointed senator, Carter Durst, initially stated that he was against the proposed legislation due to the politically based wording mentioned in the bill.
“This goes in as a type of political piece; it starts talking about DEI and wanting it to get reinstituted … I think you’re using an example that shouldn’t be supporting DEI, and I am personally in favor of merit-based scholarships and merit-based admissions processes.” said Senator Durst during the debate.
Another new senator, Benson Wyke said in response, “Just to go over any possible concerns senators might have, in line 84 (of the bills text), ‘maintaining a diverse student body, despite the systematic removal of DEI, this is not establishing DEI. This is just stating that while the current equipment has had to leave, we are not reflective of the current administration, so we are not building DEI.”
“Racism should not be a model on campus, or anywhere in Idaho. What I would like to say, as much as it’s unfortunate for what people do, hate speech is not illegal in Idaho … Free speech is free speech. You have to respect that, and as much as you may hate it, whether it’s someone insulting me, my friends, It’s America, you have the first amendment for a reason.” said senator Durst.
In furthering his discussion of the bill, senator Durst said “I don’t like the term Aryan, being used to describe white people. That’s kind of like a white nationalist term … I think European-American would be more accurate. I just don’t understand why we are describing African-Americans in the best way possible and then calling us Aryan … I don’t like describing anyone as Aryan, because that was something that Adolf Hitler used to describe people, and it’s the wrong term.”
One of the three writers of the bill, Senator Rainey Roecker said during debate, “I was the individual that wrote that verbiage, and I felt it was appropriate due to the groups we were discussing having relation to Adolf Hitler and his practices … I felt that describing these groups with that verbiage as an individual that could be described as Aryan was appropriate in this context.”
Towards the end of the debate, Senator Durst said, “I think it is absolutely wrong. I am not for it at all, and to say that I am for it feels like a mischaracterization. The reason I don’t support this bill, is because of feel it is too politically loaded for what it is trying to accomplish … I think this resolution puts an unnecessary target on our back, due to us being a political institution … as much as I agree with the passion and reasoning behind this bill, the way that it is written I don’t agree with.”
Another writer of the bill, Senator Envee Carter, said, “People can have their opinions, but I mean, like the least we could have done is write a damn resolution, and it could of, it should have been much longer in my opinion, so if we are going to sit here and go back and forth with an issue and how it might seem like and it might be political, it’s not. Its point-blank racism … All we are saying is ‘hey look world, hey look the state of Idaho, if you want to go deep into legislation, what we’re writing about is racism. We’re writing about how it’s not okay.”
After debate, the ASUI Senate passed the bill anonymously.
F26-B03, a bill to allocate funding for future tabling events for ASUI was also passed anonymously during the meeting. $400 will be drawn from the ASUI Senate budget, to be spent on promotional materials within that budget.
“The importance of having better engagement and physical marketing items in extremely imperative to better guide the student body being represented within ASUI. The more people who know about what we do, our events, the more people there is to prepare for in the next election cycle.”
This bill has been moved to the ways and means committee for further review.
Bills introduced during this senate meeting included a resolution to celebrate Hispanic heritage month, F26-R04, as well as an act allocating funds for the African Students Association’s annual Africa Night titled F26-B04.
ASUI Senate meets at 7 p.m. in the Crest room on the fourth floor of the ISUB. Meetings are open to the public.
Josie Adjanohoun can be reached at [email protected].