Bylaw confusion leaves the fate of Student Senate diversity seat a mystery

The diversity senator position is gone for now all because of a bylaw mishap that occurred last year.

Last week, senators voted to postpone discussing the potential elimination of the three diversity senator positions that were created last year. But about an hour before Monday’s meeting began, Secretary Laura Clay discovered that the position had never been added to the Student Senate bylaws. 

Meaning the position technically has never existed.  

“There was a motion that passed last September that kind of established a diversity senator and that was a bylaw revision,” Clay said. “But there is nothing in the bylaws that mention that.” 

While the reason for this is unknown, Clay said that there might have been a mix-up where the position was put into the Student Senate Constitution but not the bylaws. There also isn’t any documentation of the revision other than the meeting minutes from Sept. 28, 2020.  

“As of what we’re seeing, technically, right now diversity goes away,” Chief Justice Nathan Cronin said.  

Now, instead of debating whether the seats should be kept or eliminated, senators must vote on whether it should be added to the bylaws. In order to petition a bylaw revision, a senator must submit a written petition signed by other senators to the bylaw committee.