ALANA Caucus officially in Protest!

Fact Sheet

Speaker Nokes has unilaterally declared the elimination of ALANA Caucus appointed seats for the Fall 2003/Spring 2004 term. View his statement about the protest that occurred on Sept 11th at http://www.umass.edu/rso/sga/091103-statement.html
This action violates Title II, Chapter 3 of the General By-Laws which recognize ALANA Caucus appointed seats.
Article IV, Section 1 states, "The SGA shall be composed of the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial branches of government. All elected and appointed officers of the SGA shall be members of the SGA, as defined by the General By-laws of the SGA, and no SGA member shall hold elected or appointed office in more than one branch of the government, as provided by this Constitution or the General By-Laws of the SGA." This article provides for the existence of appointed officers all throughout the entire structure of SGA. Who's to say that the article cannot be used to justify appointed officers in the Legislative branch (the Student Senate)? Who's to say this article doesn't apply to area governments and ALANA Caucus appointed senators?
This action violates the Student Judiciary's decision in "Boniface, Rossettie, Spilman Vs. SGA", Student Judiciary case SG1.99.00, which declared the ALANA Caucus appointed seats constitutional. Speaker Nokes has acted against the dictates of the Judiciary branch.
This action goes contrary to the last public referendum on the issue (March 2001). In that referendum, 1678 students voted for the ALANA seats (defeating 797 against). The students democratically spoke! They want the ALANA Caucus! Speaker Nokes stated that he doesn't care about "public opinion" on this matter (Sept 10th, Daily Collegian article "ALANA Caucus Eliminated"). The ALANA Caucus believes that the supreme duty of any representative is to represent the wishes of his constituents, no matter what established law dictates (especially "law" that was imposed on the student body by an external body outside the student population, the Board of Trustees). Laws that are not legitimate in the eyes of the constituents should not have authoritative standing. Laws are not written in stone, and they can be changed. The ALANA Caucus challenges all to contrast what is written in the SGA Constitution and the General By-Laws and what is desired by the student population. We would also argue that the democratic opinion of the student population overrules any Constitutional mandate or By-Law statement (whether the Constitution or By-Laws are legitimately created by the student body or imposed by another body, the Board of Trustees).

What the ALANA Community Wants

We want Speaker Nokes to reverse his unilateral decision to eliminate the ALANA Caucus appointed seats. They're constitutional, and they are supported by the students. We also want him to issue an apology because we believe his decision to inform the campus of the elimination of ALANA Caucus seats was confrontation and disrespectful. No ALANA student had a seat in the summer Coordinating Council which discussed the issue of the ALANA Caucus appointed seats. As during the pre-Civil Rights era in the United States, once again, certain white students (not all) believe they know best how to approach issues of racial/ethnic diversity, representation, and fairness. We oppose this paternalistic mentality and demand personal participation in the matters that affect us and our community.
We want equitable and proportional representation in Student Senate. ALANA students pay an equal amount to the SATF fund (Student Activities Trust Fund), yet don't have equal representation in Senate to make sure the money is divided in an equitable fashion. President Dave Carr was quoted (in the Sept 10th, Daily Collegian) stating that SGA is comprised of "90% white males". That's WITH the ALANA Caucus in place. Imagine what would be the representation proportion if there were no ALANA Caucus? The ALANA community cannot allow ourselves to be "taxed" without "representation".
Many critics of the ALANA Caucus' claims of underfunding have pointed to the funding of the Office of ALANA Affairs as proof that the ALANA community receives its fair share of the pie. To respond, 1) the Office of ALANA Affairs is an agency entrusted with advocacy, education, and other tasks regarding ALANA issues on campus. We welcome their efforts as allies in the struggle for equal rights and resources at the University. However, it is important to recognize that the ALANA student community is not only concerned with the funding of the Office of ALANA Affairs, but more specifically the funding of student ALANA groups, who do much of the programming for student events. It is the ALANA RSOs that need to be funded more. 2) The goals and tasks entrusted to the Office of ALANA Affairs could be fairly compared to the responsibilities of other agencies and programs on campus (Everywoman Center, etc.) and other ALANA offices in other Universities. The Everywoman Center and other ALANA offices in the U.S. have 3-5 fully-employed staff as part of their programs. The Office of ALANA Affairs only has 1 fully employed staff person (Director Nelson Acosta). In the past and currently, the Office of ALANA Affairs has had to function with the aid of part-time undergraduates and graduate students. While the work these students have provided has been exemplary, the fact that the Office of ALANA Affairs has to make do with part-time help is evidence of a lack of commitment by the University administration and the powers that be to have a fully-functioning office at the University to deal with the many tasks that the Office of ALANA Affairs has been entrusted with. To be short, the Office of ALANA Affairs has been set up to "fail". We call on the University administration to revisit the issue of the Office of ALANA Affairs, not with an eye to dismantle or undermine the program, but to make it as strong as other ALANA programs at other Universities. We urge the administration (and the SGA) to work up a funding-scheme that can divide the funding load and management of the Office between the administration and the students.
The ALANA community views with increasing alarm the elimination of faculty staff positions (and the elimination of ALANA faculty in particular). There is no legitimate excuse why UMASS has lost over 900 faculty positions in the last 10 years. This reality showcases a failure at the state level and the Umass administrative level to provide a quality education to all students at the University. The ALANA community calls for state officials and the UMASS administration to take concrete measures to address this massive failure. The ALANA community reserves the right to protest this reality by any peaceful means deemed necessary.
The ALANA community disagreed and protested the decision by the UMASS administration to eliminate the academic-advising component of the ALANA support programs (BCP, UALRC, CEEBMS, NASSS) and consolidate the programs under a centralized administrative control. We demand that the academic-advising component be re-added to the ALANA support programs, that the programs be adequately funded, and that program directors be given more discretionary power over the activities of the programs, and that they be accountable and accessible to the University student community. It is the students, not the administration, who should judge how successful (or unsuccessful) the programs are. It is our education (after all) which is at stake. The ALANA community reserves the right to protest the current status of the ALANA support programs by any peaceful means deemed necessary.
The ALANA community protested and disagreed with the UMASS administration decision to merge the ALANA Cultural Centers (LACC, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Sylvan Cultural Center, etc.) under the supervisory wing of the ALANA support programs. The ALANA Cultural Centers evolved from the political struggles of ALANA students and the cultural/economic/political/educational/recreational needs of the ALANA student community. In the past, they were seperate entities from the ALANA support programs. Although the ALANA Caucus views the current directors/staff of the ALANA support programs as friendly allies in the struggle to make Umass more multi-cultural, we recognize that the ALANA student community requires that the ALANA Cultural Centers be seperate entities, under ALANA student-management, for the following reasons: 1) The needs of the ALANA support programs and their directors don't always coincide with the needs of the ALANA student population. A merger of both would centralize control of the ALANA Cultural Centers under the directorship of the ALANA support programs (and disadvantage the ALANA student population vis a vis the wishes of the directors of the ALANA support programs). 2) By subduing the ALANA Cultural Centers under the ALANA support programs, it deprives the ALANA students of real deliberative power over ALANA Cultural Center policy. In simple terms, the ALANA student population doesn't want autonomous control over our cultural centers, we want independence of action and deliberation. The ALANA community reserves the right to protest the merger of the ALANA Cultural Centers with the ALANA support programs by any peaceful means deemed necessary.
The ALANA community puts forth a model of democracy that differs from the United States, "winner take all" democratic-electoral model. We do not deny that an electoral process is central to a legitimate democracy. We agree with critics of appointed seats that the electoral process is the moment in which the electorate transfers its authority to the representative (thereby making the representative legitimate to the electorate). That's why ALANA Caucus appointed senators have to go through a process of collecting 25 signatures from regular undergraduate students and must win a majority vote within the ALANA Caucus General meetings to win an appointed place in Student Senate. No ALANA appointed Senator receives his seat without confirmation (through a primary-electoral process within the ALANA community) that he/she truly represents the wishes of ALANA students. The appointment process to the Senate was devised in recognition that ALANA students have historically (and currently) been underrepresented in Senate and to provide a venue to assure that the Senate has a modicum of ALANA representation. This model of mixed electoral-appointed democracy is not new and is practiced in various countries of the world to allow smaller parties and governmental groups a voice and representation in their nation's parliaments. The ALANA community believes that mixed electoral-appointed democracies do a better job of making parliaments/Senates more inclusive (and therefore more democratic), while retaining the legitimacy of the body by mandating that the overwhelming majority of the representatives be elected in regular elections (including the electoral primaries within the ALANA community that the ALANA appointed senators have to go through). We would remind readers that there is a difference between "democracy" and the "electoral process". One is a goal or form of government, the other is one of the components of a democratic model. Some democracies are exclusively electoral, others are shaped in a way that mixes the "electoral process" with "appointments" to recognize smaller parties and groups in a democratic body. The ALANA community prefers the mixed model as a better form of democracy and argues that the ALANA Caucus appointed seats are an integral and necessary part of Student Senate at the University of Massachusetts and are consistent with this vision of a mixed electoral-appointed, inclusive and participatory democracy.