It was one of those weeks in student politics, easily the most controversial of the year, but hopefully the last to spark such outrage and dissent.
At last week’s CSA board meeting, several proposals were presented to the board by the executive. One was a proposal to combine the Human Rights Office, the Financial Resource room and the Legal Resource Room into the Student Help and Advocacy Centre (SHAC), which critics say will result in a lack of focus on human rights advocacy. The board ratified another proposal, one to eliminate the provision in the CSA hiring process that gives an advantage to students who identify with a marginalized group in the event that two candidates for a job fall within five per cent of each other. The previous equitable employment policy required applicants seeking marginalized status to fill out a confidential form indicating which of the following groups they identify with; the new policy does not factor a person’s marginalized status into the hiring process, but rather tracks whether marginalized persons are applying for jobs with the CSA for statistical purposes.
Then there was the proposal to make changes to the job titles of the CSA executive. For example, Academic Commissioner would become the Academic & University Affairs Commissioner; the Communication Commissioner would become Communications & Corporate Affairs Commissioner.
Three name changes passed, with Local and External Affairs Commissioner remaining the same.
Each of these developments has prompted dissent from groups and individuals in the campus community, arguing generally that students were not properly consulted about the proposed changes. Some went as far as saying that the CSA initiatives are “regressive and at odds with what student unions are supposed to be doing.”
The CSA, frustrated about their inability to bring about welcomed change, expressed disbelief over how such changes could be so poorly received.
As the only organization on this campus tasked with presenting the differing views on each one of these issues, we can’t help but see that the interested parties on both ends of the issue need to remedy the situation. And unless both sides remedy the situation, the gap will certainly widen.
Firstly, the CSA has spoken at length about creating a type of environment that will engage students in the political process. Well, make good on your plans. It matters less whether the CSA feels that the changes they’ve made, and the manner they went about making them, was just and fair. What matters more is that a significant group of students were crying foul and felt that due process had not been achieved.
Yet this week the CSA provided students with little more than justifications of the changes they made. As one student explained, the merits of the proposals and changes are not the issue. The issue is the process.
The CSA needs to reflect long and hard about the source of student dissatisfaction and come up with real solutions, not justifications. If consultation is at the heart of the issue, regardless of what the executive thinks, sufficient efforts were not made.
But there is a fine line between expressing your concerns in a meaningful way and discrediting your argument, as well as those trying to spur on change in a respectful manner.
At last week’s CSA board meeting, a group of students stormed the board meeting to protest the proposal to the CSA’s hiring practices. This week, a flyer was distributed in the UC courtyard, with no names attached, making unfounded claims that devalued many of the truths it presented. For example, the executive’s proposal for changing the names of their portfolios was construed as a move “that will look good in the current executives resume (sic) when they break into the business world.” It was also implied that it was a farce to call the CSA an equitable employer because of the change to the CSA’s equity policy.
If the intent of the flyer was to rally up student support, it failed. Unfortunately, most students on this campus are apathetic to politics, and presenting issues to them in what looks like sensationalist rhetoric, simply won’t work. Doing this will also simply devalue concerns in the eyes of the executive.
The irony is that we believe the CSA and individuals protesting recent CSA decisions are working for the same cause: the advancement of students’ rights and the overall betterment of the campus community.
But ultimately, the outrage this week was a result of a communications breakdown on the part of the CSA. The ball is in their court, to show students in a meaningful way that they do in fact stand for student’s rights.