An amendment to remove the vice president of multicultural affairs position from the Student Association constitution was discussed extensively Monday at an Assembly meeting.
The amendment, proposed by Adam Shamah, a sophomore majoring in finance, was reviewed and approved by the Student Assembly Rules Committee on Wednesday, Nov. 19, with a vote of 7 to 2. It is set to be debated and voted on at next Monday’s Student Assembly meeting, where it will need a two-thirds majority to pass.
If the Assembly approves it, the amendment would need to be accepted by two-thirds of all undergraduate student voters in a referendum for it to be enacted.
“Students should have a say and students should decide,” Shamah said.
Student Association President Matt Landau called the amendment “the most controversial internal matter” he’s seen in his four year experience.
According to Landau, Binghamton University has had eight different people in the VPMA position over the last four years. If the amendment was passed, he said, it would only mean the Assembly was allowing it to go to students.
“The motives are not important,” he said. “What’s important is the issue at stake.”
Maryam Belly, the current VPMA, said no other executive board position has gone through a similar situation.
“The VPMA position has consistently been targeted,” she said. “This is an example.”
Belly said she felt the issues faced by cultural groups on campus can’t be addressed without the position. She said that some students have come to her saying that they came to BU because it was marketed as a diverse area, only to find that nothing was being done about issues at a student level.
“We need to look at the motives and question whether this is something we want to happen,” she said.
Belly proposed fixing problems by adding changes to the position, such as encouraging cultural and non-cultural groups to collaborate, advocating for cultural students who are not members of groups and coordinating efforts with the administration.
Shamah, who is the president of the Binghamton Review and a member of the Rules Committee, said that he has heard plenty of people say that the position should be eliminated.
“It doesn’t matter what I believe,” Shamah said, though he added that he personally doesn’t think there should be a VPMA.
Shamah had no predictions for how the vote would go, but said he didn’t “see any reason why [the Assembly] should vote against it.”
The proposal is being sponsored by Elahd Bar-Shai of Off Campus College Council, Rules Committee Chair Mary Leonardo and Jared Kirschenbaum, a representative from Newing College.
“It’s not about content but democracy,” Kirschenbaum said.
According to Belly it is necessary to discuss both the merits of the amendment and the necessity for a referendum.
“This is a sad moment for the SA,” she said.
Belly said she didn’t think the amendment was an attack on her personally, but that she did see it as an attack on the VPMA position.
“It’s hard to judge how the Assembly is going to vote because this year it’s been easily swayed by a few voices,” she said.