Union Secretary Michael Goldman 08 resigned last night, citing irreconcilable differences with the Executive Board and its policies regarding arming campus police and the apparent illegality of the Racial Minority Senator position, sources say. This resignation comes after a Union censure and several attempts at impeachment following his disclosure of voting information during the Senator elections on Sept. 17.
This executive office has gotten to the point where no one reflects the interests of campus, said Goldman. It has become a completely autocratic body focused on one person and totally absorbed with the single-partisan issue of race.
Goldman stated the continuing debate about the gun policy has become one of the two items that have probably been dominating the agenda the President of the Student Union and a couple of people surrounding her have been pushing the idea that the Brandeis Police have been hostile towards ethnic minorities and if they had guns they would somehow use them to the detriment of minorities, because they're clearly racists.
He also added that Jehuda Reinharz wrote us and asked us to nominate two people to [the Firearms Policy Advisory Committee] we were debating this a bit to decide how we were going to get two people… and then Shreeya [Sinha 09, Union president] writes an e-mail and she says Ive thought about this for awhile and I'm going to take one of the spots. She says the reason why is because I'm a minority and I have a perspective on how minorities been discriminated against by the police. So immediately the yes-men on the Executive Office say definitely, definitelythats a direct quote in response. Two students nominated by the Senate, and one of them is the president, because nobody can tell her no.
Goldman said that his main problem with the Unions current structure: Right now we have over 50 members of the student body or the student government appointed. There are 10 executive officers, only four are elected, [the rest of them] are appointed under the sole authority of the President. Because of this, Goldman said, our Senate has been totally inert because we have this E-Board that has the exact same job as the Senate and since the administration obviously is going to talk to a discrete body rather than a body with more than 20 members, the Senate basically just charters clubs.
One of these initiatives Goldman took issue with was a discussion about Diversity Day, where every single classphilosophy, psychology, chemistrywould spend 10 minutes at the beginning of the class talking about diversity issues. Not surprisingly, the faculty and the administration wasn't too receptive about that idea, because we pay a lot of money to go to this school to get a liberal arts education, not to learn about this political correctness indoctrination.
Goldman also stated that because only students who are racial minorities are allowed to run for [Racial Minority Student Senator and Racial Minority Student F-Boarders], we've now had two lawyers tell us that this position is illegal and a violation of Title Six [of the Civil Rights Act]. The administration has tried to get us to deal with this, but there hasn't been any case brought.
Furthermore, Goldman stated, he disagreed with the positions themselves. Both our president and our treasurer are international students from Asianot white if you choose to believe in those designations. And the Admissions department brags about that, they say our President is from India and our Treasurer is from Korea, and yet somehow we need a position that only members of certain races can vote for? That's scary.
He added, [Sinha] said [last night] are we all agreed that the only outcome we will accept is no change to this position, a position that we have not only determined to be not just racially-based voting, but has been determined illegal by the United States Constitution. And the agenda is so dominated by this philosophy by this ideology is that you can't speak out against it, especially if you're white, because the people who hold to this view, especially people on the E-Board, might go after you.
Goldman said its very hard for meI used to really believe in the body, we used to have all these public servants… a lot of them are gone. I think [those few people left] do great things in their political realms… [but] I think they are usually sort of brushed off.
He added I will never be wholly divorced from the Uniona lot of my friends are members, but this intimate involvement is no longer productive, its no longer useful, its no longer appropriate.
