Western Oregon Journal

Recently, in an article titled, "Students petition for recall," Western Oregon University College Democrats (WOUCD) were not represented. We wondered: Why didn't anyone come to us?

First, for the record, the WOUCD as an organization are not associated with the recall. We prefer to let democracy take its course. However, we are not despotic; individual members have the right to pursue the removal of an elected official. If one or more of our members are actively supporting the recall, they do so without the support or backing of WOUCD.

So let's check some facts:

It was reported that, "The ASWOU President said that the Western Oregon Democrats refused to write a new constitution." First, it is not a requirement to enact a new constitution but rather to provide ASWOU with an updated copy. President Blakney's distortion of the facts is unethical. We simply refused to print off a new copy. According to ASWOU policy (and we use that word loosely), every club's constitution is kept on file to be viewed by any member of the student body upon request. Here is our reasoning: If our club's Constitution has not changed, and the adviser and student representative have not changed, why must we waste school and personal resources in printing off a new constitution, waste energy that could be devoted to other projects, walk throughout campus to get one signature and hand ASWOU an exact duplicate of a document it already possesses. Here is an excerpt of a response we received from ASWOU:

"Yes, ASWOU does keep club constitutions on file for viewing but after the school year is over they essentially "expire." I'm sorry that you feel that this process is wasteful and needless, but that's just the way it is."

"That's just the way it is." Now that's democracy, ladies and gentleman. We did finally decide to print them off a copy of our existing constitution. Instead of wasting paper on a document they already possessed, we printed it off in a smaller font to save resources. Hasn't ASWOU been trying to save resources with not requesting more money from IFC and even cutting in a few places?

Blakney goes further in explaining to the Journal that, "the group did write a new constitution-but they did so using a five-point font." That is FALSE. We did not write a new constitution, we printed off a copy of the one already in ASWOU's possession, and it was in size three-point font. The Student Organizations Director took it with a smile, and later that same day, President Blakney hand delivered it to club Co-Chair Carl Fisher and deemed it "unacceptable." Mr. Fisher, then asked to see these standards that had what font size a constitution had to be in. The President responded, "This is not to my standards."

We will bring this issue before Senate, and we will submit legislation regarding these alleged policies before another club is threatened. From our understanding, the Senate did try, but the Student Concern report that was submitted by student, Miguel de la Torre was not taken seriously by the ASWOU President, as he instructed his Student Organizations Director to release no documents regarding club policies. Students pay for those documents; they are entitled to have them upon request.

We also hope that the WOU Journal will take the time to check more into the background of issues brought before them. Relying on one person for "the facts" is never wise. Remember, being President does not make one automatically fair and balanced.

-WOUCD Co-Chairs

Carl Fisher

Steven Sharp

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