OU's Undergraduate Student Congress passed three bills Tuesday, including a recommendation to maintain current laws regarding weapons on campus.
Congress passed CR-109-01, which recommends state legislators keep all laws about guns on campus as they are currently written. The bill was co-written by Abby Halsey-Kraus, student congress parliamentarian, and Weslie Griffin, external affairs committee chair.
Halsey-Kraus said they had noticed numerous laws filed under this legislative session aiming to increase the ability to carry on campus, including Oklahoma Senate Bill 820 and Senate Bill 664.
Although Oklahoma law changed in 2019 to allow any person over the age of 21 to carry a firearm without a permit, pre-existing restrictions in public higher education institutions, including OU, remained, and weapons are still prohibited on campus.
“(The current law) has worked as is, and we feel that any loosening of these laws could negatively impact the safety of students,” Halsey-Kraus said.
The Oklahoma Self-Defense Act states it is at the discretion of a university’s president to permit someone to carry a weapon on campus.
“If someone feels unsafe on campus, they are and will still be able to contact the president as well as OUPD,” Halsey-Kraus said. “Bottom line, we do not have a need for more guns on campus. The (laws) we have in place now have been able to prevent potentially dangerous groups from carrying them on campus and have the proper infrastructure for those who feel they need to carry for their own safety.”
The resolution received a vote of 23-1-0 and will move to the Graduate Student Senate for further consideration.
Congress also saw two appointment bills, one for its seven committee chairs and one for the Christopher Firch and Emelie Schultz administration’s chief of staff. For the Congress committees, Lacey Lewis, congress chair, sought to reappoint all the current committee chairs to their current positions. Firch sought to appoint Maria De Asis as chief of staff.
“Through her previous roles in leadership, whether it be serving as an executive member of Asian American Student Association, being a member of the President Leadership Class and being a counselor at the CAC High School Leadership Conference, I think she has a unique perspective of many different voices and backgrounds on campus,” Firch said.
De Asis said although she has not met with previous chief of staff Lauren Roberts, she has met with Cricket Kaya, the 2020-21 chief of staff for Tavana Farzaneh and Alex Gray’s administration.
“We’ve had extensive conversations about the expectations that she had during her role and what was expected out of her,” De Asis said. “During those conversations, I’ve gotten a greater scope of what’s expected of me, the challenges I might face and the things I might learn.”
De Asis said she’s been involved with many different organizations on campus but hopes to find her place with SGA.
“Student government is the foundation of any educational institution,” De Asis said. “In high school, I was involved in student government, but in high school, that was a personal growth thing as I started to form my identity. In university, though, it’s a place where we get to make our voices heard and initiate change.”
Both bills passed unanimously, and the appointment bill for De Asis will be seen by the Graduate Student Senate.
The body also nominated candidates to replace Lewis, who will be stepping down effective at the next meeting on Feb. 7. They nominated Bailey Trautman, the vice chair, Rep. Shrey Kathuria and Halsey-Kraus, who will have one week to think of and present a campaign. Elections will also be held at the next meeting.
This story was edited by Alexia Aston, Karoline Leonard and Jazz Wolfe. This story was copy edited by Alexandra Powell-Lorentzatos and Francisco Gutierrez.
