Sunday, December 17, 2006
Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrck!
Some dude says:
i've always wondered how the asuc can not fund discrimination, but fund the rrc's, who all discriminate based on race, at least implicitly I wish people would use capital letters when typing on the interwebs. You're writing stuff down, and people are going to read it. English uses capital letters when written for people to read. Keyboard manufacturers give us two 'shift' keys.
A less important issue raised by this comment is ASUC funding of race-based Recruitment and Retention Centers (RRCs). The constitution says this thingie:
The Senate shall not fund any activity or group which discriminates against any student by race, color, religion, marital status, national origin, sex, age, sexual orientation, physical disability, or political activity or belief in its method or recruitment and acceptance for membership. This is actually the extent to which discrimination is prohibited by the ASUC. It could pass a bill that says "White people are vastly superior to all other races," and there's no constitutional issue with that. That is to say, the ASUC only prohibits the groups it funds from being discriminatory. It doesn't actually have such a prohibition against itself.
Also, I think that last 'or' is a typo. In our constitution.
Anyway, the simple answer to that anonymous dude's question is that "Nobody proved discrimination in front of the Judicial Council," which is the manner in which this Constitutional provision is enforced.
The longer answer has two parts:
First, it appears that the non-disscrimination requirement is limited to recrutiment and membership issues. This seems odd since the provision discusses not only groups but 'activit[ies],' which normally don't themselves recruit/have membership. So a group could provide services to white people only, and as long as you don't have to be white to join this group providing services, it'd be okay. It's my understanding that you don't need to belong to the relevant race to work at one of these RRCs (not that I'd know).
Second, even if this interpretation is wrong, the recruitment services which target particular races outside of the university probably wouldn't qualify as discriminating against 'student[s],' assuming the proper interpretation is "Cal students."
That said, these interpretational issues are issues. The first, in particular, seems a bit off. And one may be able to argue that the RRCs target only those of their own race when recruiting members, though I wouldn't know if this is true. It may be beneficial for the ASUC for someone to bring the case so that the Judicial Council can rule on the issue. Since it's almost certain to rule that the RRCs are not discriminatory under this section of the Constitution, it may be in the RRCs' own interests to see such a case brought, just so that they can settle these complaints. As usual, I'm happy to help out.
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