Student Government held its fourth and longest meeting of the semester Oct. 13 focused on opposition to Flock cameras, approval of a special election, multiple event allocations and major updates to the rules and procedures of the senate during its three hour mega-session.
At the start of the meeting, Student Government voted to briefly suspend its rules to hear public comment earlier in the meeting, directly after a presentation from the university career center, and to consider its first resolution covering Flock cameras on campus before usual officer reports.
During the public comment, six students and one alumni, all of whom declined to give their name to Student Government, spoke against the use of Flock cameras on campus.
“We all know what this kind of surveillance means for campus, it targets students and student movements,” the fourth student speaker said. “These cameras are bad for student expression.”
After public comment, the senate moved into discussion of its Flock resolution titled, “In Opposition to Flock Automated License Plate Reader Cameras and Automated License Plate Reader Surveillance at UT Dallas.” Its author, ECS senator Sarim Muhammad, spoke about the various security risks associated with Flock like malicious use of the system by people outside UTD, data breaches, the sharing of student information with agencies like Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the targeting of protesters for their speech. Muhammad emphasized that UTD PD had previously stated that despite scanning over 50,000 vehicles each week this year, UTD PD had only received 66 alerts from the system.
“It’s time for UTD to Flock off,” Muhammad said in his closing remarks.
As the senate opened the floor for members to discuss the anti-Flock resolution, 13 senators immediately lined up to speak about it — all in agreement that UTD should remove Flock cameras from campus. Some senators spoke in favor of the resolution while also emphasizing that the cameras were the enemy, not UTD PD — other senators disagreed.
“I think it is deeply troubling that almost every week now we have to speak against some new injustice or regression of speech on this campus,“ senator Yara Ismael said. “We have to take a firm stance against these cameras … I disagree with the notion that we have no reason not to trust UTD PD. I think that UTD PD has indeed arrested and jailed students for their speech, and we cannot let them continue to use tools like Flock to suppress student voices.”
As the ten minutes of discussion ended, the senate moved to a vote in which it unanimously passed its anti-Flock resolution. The senate then moved back to its regular schedule with officer reports.
Neuroscience senior and SG President David Baker said that he was working on multiple background projects to rework the structure of the senate including the possible creation of cabinets to support the various executive roles of SG.
“We have already started with some superficial changes with the agenda and our new placards,” Baker said. “But I want us to go further. This will be a year of change for SG.”
Computer science senior and SG Vice-President Farhan Iqbal said that SG was continuing to work with Interim Vice President of Student Affairs and Dean of Students Amanda Smith to try to address some longstanding issues SG had been facing, including student media problems and SG’s lack of pizza money.
“Last senate we discussed how we wouldn’t be able to afford pizza anymore, so I wanted to give a huge shoutout to the Student Affairs office for covering our pizza costs for the rest of the year,” Iqbal said.
During her report, Diversity, Equity and Belonging Chair Nivedha Maniv said that she was incredibly proud of SG’s successful National Coming Out Day event on Oct. 12 at the Plinth which drew over 450 student attendees.
The senate considered an additional eight resolutions this meeting, three of which were carried over from the Sept. 29 senate meeting which ended early due to a lack of quorum. Before discussion of the resolutions began, SG senator and neuroscience sophomore Connor Gandy moved to limit discussion on all remaining agenda items to a maximum of 5 minutes — an action which received overwhelming support from the senate.
The second resolution of the night — “Resolution Condemning Tarrant County Polling Site Reduction & Reinstating the UTA Maverick Activity Center Polling Site” — was presented by political science sophomore and Legislative Affairs Chair Anointing Okereke. Okerke said it was important for students to have ready access to polling sites in a functioning democracy and that the senate should call on local election officials in Tarrant County to reinstate the UT Arlington’s polling sites which were removed last month as the county eliminated 92 of its formerly 316 polling sites in the lead-up to this year’s midterm elections. The senate passed the resolution which will be sent to the Tarrant County Commissioners Court and the UT Arlington student government.
The third and fourth resolutions both concerned amendments to the SG bylaws. The first amendment resolution added the new SG treasurer position into the bylaws table of contents — it was passed. The second amendment resolution added procedures to hold special elections when the SG vice-president position is vacant. The current vice-president, Iqbal, is graduating at the end of the fall semester and will no longer be eligible to serve in that role. The senate engaged in prolonged whisper discussion as to whether or not chairs would lose their positions if they ran for vice-president during a special election, the senate ultimately decided that they would not — the resolution was passed.
The fifth resolution — “In support of Amending the Standing Rules to Allow the Presiding Officer of Senate more autonomy in Setting the Agenda” — presented by president Baker authorized the president, or other presiding officer of the senate, to change the order of the agenda in advance of a meeting to prioritize different items. Baker said that the resolution was written to clarify ambiguity in the current standing rules and ideally minimize the amount of time spent suspending rules during meetings and to avoid the loss of quorum before “important” matters were discussed by the senate. It passed.
The sixth resolution — “Bylaw Amendment on the Addition of Lounge Clean-Up Requirements and Regaining Senator Points” — presented by SG secretary and neuroscience sophomore Fatimah Yousaf introduced new requirements for senate committees to take turns on a rotating basis to clean the SG work room; the resolution also introduced provisions to allow senators to remove discipline points against them, accumulated through actions like missing meetings, could be removed by attending volunteer clean-up days organized by the secretary. The resolution passed.
The seventh resolution — “In support of the creation of an Interim Vice President of Student Government” — was presented before the senate as is required by bylaw changes. Okerke, who presented the resolution, said the goal of the change was to provide provisions to ensure the role of vice-president was filled between the transition from Iqbal to whomever is elected to replace him. The resolution was tabled as required by SG rules, and the senate expects this resolution to pass at the next meeting.
The eight resolution — “In support of Amending the Election Code to Create Executive Officer Special Election Guidelines” — updated the SG election code to provide a basic template for future executive officer special elections in the case of vacancies. It was passed by the senate.
The ninth resolution — “In support of ‘The Voices of The Students’ Anonymous Tipline Form” — was tabled by SG after senators raised concerns over the resolutions lack of clarity regarding the resolution’s goal to establish an anonymous tipline and “Voice of the Students” liaison to communicate some of the anonymous tipline concerns to the senate.
The senate considered six allocations this meeting. The first allocation set aside $239.58 to fund SG’s first “Campus Journey” event which will be held Oct. 20 from 1 to 5 p.m. The “Campus Journey” is a scavenger hunt in which students will explore the entire campus for rewards including flower legos, stickers and candy. The allocation passed.
The second allocation set aside $378.40 to purchase 500 tampons and 500 menstrual pads which will be distributed in free dispensers in public women’s bathrooms in the University Commons dorms and the Canyon Creek Heights apartments. The allocation passed.
The third allocation set aside $72.04 to purchase cupcakes and post-it notes for the Residential Committee’s “Residential Roadshow.” The Residential Committee will host the roadshow Nov. 12 and aims to give students information about on- and off-campus housing options.
The fourth allocation set aside $385 to fund SG’s collaborative WIApalooza event, held Nov. 18 from 11 a.m. until 6 p.m. The event will be held in collaboration with the Women in Animation student organization. SG will cover custodial fees while WIA hosts a student market in the ATEC lobby.
The fifth and sixth allocations were both focused on paying for the Student Affairs Committee’s Nov. 5 Fall Festival and were considered together. The fifth allocation set aside $526.72 for 40 pizzas and 108 halloween-themed sugar cookies for the event. The sixth allocation set aside $459.93 to purchase decorations, giveaway prizes and soda for the event. In total, SG allocated $986.65 for the Fall Festival — coming in less than $15 under SG’s $1,000 cap for event allocations presented without prior executive committee review. The Fall Festival allocations were postponed during the meeting because their original combined cost exceeded the cap. The amended allocations were passed by the senate.
As the meeting neared its end, the senate voted to approve the special elections for vice-president and held an elections board chair election. President Baker and EPPS senator Jackson Logue were both nominated to fill the position of elections board chair. Baker emphasized his experience running multiple elections in the past; Logue praised Baker as the more qualified candidate and emphasized that he would be okay with the position as well if chosen. Baker won the special election with roughly 97% of the electronic vote.
Filing for vice-president opens Oct. 26 and will run through Oct. 30. The campaigning period will begin Nov. 2 and end Dec. 2 The special election will be held Nov. 30 once students have returned from fall break and end Dec. 2. If a runoff is needed, it will be held Dec. 4. SG will post more details about the special election, filing and campaigning on its website and Instagram in the coming week.
SG meetings are open to the public. The next senate meeting will be held at 5:30 p.m. Oct. 27 in the SU Galaxy Rooms.