The Student Bar Association Senate on Tuesday discussed how to respond to the alleged removal of fliers posted on campus by pro-Palestinian and LGBTQ+ law school groups and a resulting lack of action from GW Law’s dean of students.
SBA Executive Vice President Nigel Walton said GW Law Students for Justice in Palestine and Lambda Law, a student organization that fosters community for LGBTQ+ students, reached out to the SBA and GW Law Dean of Students Jason Belk in recent weeks about students “deliberately” tearing down their pro-Palestine and LGBTQ posters. Walton said the alleged removal of the posters was “severe” enough to constitute intentional harassment of student groups based on identity.
Walton declined to comment on which student organizations posters’ had been torn down, but SBA Sen. Marcella Rubini clarified that the posters belonged to Law Students for Palestine, which the SBA Senate unanimously approved as a new student organization last March, and Lambda. The SBA could not determine who tore down the posters, the content of the fliers or their initial locations.
“We remind all community members that creating an inclusive campus environment requires respecting the right of recognized organizations to communicate through approved channels,” Walton said.
SBA Sen. Cherissa Lindsay said she met with Belk on Tuesday about the alleged removal of the fliers, and he advised the SBA “not to get involved.” She said that Belk also advised the SBA to not publish a “statement of support” to show the body’s solidarity with the LSJP and Lambda. Lindsay said Belk showed her his email communication with LSJP, where he asked the organization to disclose if they knew who tore down the posters and where it occurred. Lindsay said Belk will not take disciplinary action until he knows who tore down the fliers.
Lindsay said it is “difficult” this year for the SBA to communicate to Belk students’ financial support needs and the SBA’s student organization funding allocation constraints. She said it does not seem like Belk “actually cares” about students.
“In my opinion, if you’re not doing your job, you need to do your job,” Lindsay said. “This has been an issue this entire semester.”
SBA Vice President of Finance Amanda Hichez said the event cost reimbursements student organizations’ requested from the SBA during last fiscal year are “finally” being processed by the body this year, following the start of this fiscal year July 1. The deduction of the reimbursements from the general SBA budget has taken an additional $13,000 from this year’s $240,000 SBA budget.
Hichez said Omer Turkomer, the chair of the SBA Finance Committee, will propose splitting a portion of the costs from the total reimbursements evenly between the executive branch and senate ad-hoc budgets, respectively at next week’s senate meeting. She said the dean of students’ office declined her request to provide the SBA with supplemental funds to allocate to the student organizations and make up for the deducted money and said she hopes the SBA Senate will make financial decisions going forward to support funding student organizations and continue conversations with Belk.
“I ask that y’all really put some pressure on the administration, because they are truly strong-arming the SBA, and the fact that a lot of decisions that you guys have made over the last couple months have been to cater to this administration, and one person in particular, is really sad,” Hichez said. “You guys were elected to represent the interests of the student orgs, the student body, so I hope that your decisions reflect that.”
SBA Sen. Elan Reisner, the chair of the Special Committee on Food Security, said the survey the committee distributed to GW Law students at the beginning of the semester about food insecurity received a total of 61 responses from the general law school population of approximately 1,700 students. He said some students recorded experiences from GW’s food pantry frequently running out of food as well as a lack of enough healthy options and hopes to implement initiatives through the SBA like a Thanksgiving meal for law students to provide more free food options to students on campus.
“I think moving forward, having events that show that we are committed to solving this issue, having a Thanksgiving lunch, is the type of thing to say, ‘We hear you and we’re trying to solve this,’” Reisner said.
The next SBA Senate meeting will be held Nov. 19 at 8 p.m. in the LLC.
