Truants

Every year, The Daily Free Press invites each of the prospective Student Union Executive Board slates to draft an open letter to the Boston University community detailing their beliefs, goals and proposals.

A rape crisis center or cable? Determine your priorities. Question the nature of your desire for cable. Maybe no one has informed you about BU’s history of covering up rape. How many students have suffered such tragedy only to suffer more at the hands of BU’s public relations department? These statistics deter potential tuition payers. Daddy’s little girl isn’t going to BU if he hears these horror stories, but his not hearing doesn’t stop the problem for those that are here. Silencing the victims’ voices only exacerbates the problem we need a rape crisis center.

Obviously, many in the administration do not care. The rape crisis center hinges on the acquisition of money. Many alumni wish to donate for causes the student body believes in but do not do so for fear the BU administration will give their hotel a new face-lift with the money. Ask Mugar. We must fund our own causes.

Support is growing for the addition of ‘sexual orientation’ to BU’s anti-discrimination clause. The Student Union needs to lend its voice and support to this cause. Individuals within the BU community should be encouraged to express their sexual orientation as openly as their ‘race, color, religion, sex, age, national origin, physical or mental handicap, or marital, parental, or veteran status,’ which are all protected under our current anti-discrimination policy. Silber stated that we do not need this addition because ‘sexual orientation’ is protected under the state’s policy, but so are all the others. Excluding this one sends the message that BU is not concerned with protecting an individual’s ‘sexual orientation.’ Are you?

Where is your money going? You are getting nickel-and-dimed for spurious reasons. The endowment dropped 27.2 percent during the 2000-01 fiscal years. A total percentage loss second only to the University of Guam according to the annual NACUBO survey of 610 colleges and universities. Students should know where that money went and in what companies BU has invested. We will get that information. Also, where is that ‘undergraduate student fee’ going? Every allocation to student clubs should be published, posted and shared with the student body.

The presidential selection committee, which seeks to replace Silber, does not want student input. The ‘True’ regime wasted valuable time and energy in order to help the administration foster the illusion that they care. The ‘Truants’ will be ‘true’ to the student body. We call for an open and active Student Union office; we will not sit quietly and allow the administration and Board of Trustees to lie to the student body.

Although a lot can be done in spite of the administration’s unwillingness to actualize many of our future projects, the ‘Truants’ will embrace the administration when it chooses to embrace the concerns of the student body.

The ‘True 2’ slate continues to break the rules of the election process rules they should know well given their experience, which they have claimed is their qualifying asset.

In these unstable times, we need unstable leaders. Vote ‘Truants.’