The OU Undergraduate Student Congress unanimously passed two pieces of legislation allocating Student Government Association funds and redistributing representative seats, and hosted two guest speakers during its Tuesday evening meeting.
George Ahmadi, OU Student Government Association adviser, gave a presentation about the Division of Student Affairs’ Campus Event Response Team, or CERT, following an incident last week involving self-proclaimed preacher, Daniel John Lee.
Lee was on campus from March 22-24 holding a picket sign listing things he believes will send people to hell, such as homosexuality and being Muslim or atheist.
Lee’s sign and speech caused several students around him to become upset, and many called him hateful.
On March 23, Lee was part of a short physical altercation with a student. Shortly afterward, OU Police Department officers arrived, but neither party pressed charges.
Ahmadi said the top priority of CERT is the student body’s safety and well-being whenever individuals such as Lee or related events occur on campus that may cause emotional distress. However, he said if a situation escalates, CERT steps aside and allows campus police to deal with the situation.
Ahmadi said his best advice for students is to walk away.
“Since OU is a public institution, (what happened with Lee) happens a lot,” Ahmadi said. “They’re just trying to engage in dialogue, and they’re trying to incite you. My best advice, move on. Do not engage because, if you engage, they will come back and keep doing it.”
Congress approved CB-109-16, a congressional bill seeking to redistribute the designated 48 representative seats of the body based on student population.
Caleb Robinson, congressional administration committee chair, said for every 571 students in a given academic discipline, there will be one seat delegated, except for the University College district, which always has 12 seats set aside for it. The bill will go into effect after the spring 2023 election cycle.
Congress also passed an auxiliary bill, which allocates SGA funds to 34 OU organizations and associations, amounting to almost $33,000. This bill will move to the Graduate Student Senate for further consideration.
Katie Tramel, a pre-med human health and biology junior, is a candidate for the Campus Activities Council chair and discussed her platform, “TRUE,” standing for transparency, reciprocity, understanding community and equity and inclusion. She currently serves as the CAC College Bowl chair.
Tramel said, through her platform points, she hopes to promote CAC’s engagement with non-CAC student organizations and act as a resource for and endorse more co-programming. Tramel also said she wants to revitalize CAC’s liaison program and create a more inclusive environment in CAC.
“What is important right now is that we take the small steps necessary to create lasting change rather than dive in and be like, ‘We want to do all this huge stuff,’ when it’s not really feasible,” Tramel said. “I’ve been speaking with multicultural organizations and noting the problems they’ve noticed in the past so we can start to address those smaller things.”
CAC elections will be held next Tuesday and Wednesday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on the OU Engage website.
This story was edited by Alexia Aston, Karoline Leonard and Jazz Wolfe. Alexandra Powell-Lorentzatos and Nikkie Aisha copy edited this story.
