A Students’ Bill of Rights was passed unanimously by the Georgetown University Student Association Tuesday night.
The Bill of Rights affirms the right of university students to participate in community affairs and opposes discrimination against students’ rights as protected under the D.C. Human Rights Act.
The bill was written by Advisory Neighborhood Commission Commissioner Justin Wagner (CAS ‘03) and approved by the ANC on Oct. 2.
The Students’ Bill of Rights was discussed at a meeting last month of the Metro University Student Alliance?an association of all student governments in the Washington area. At that meeting, the student government representatives from each D.C. school agreed that they would have their individual student governments approve the Bill in order to demonstrate wide-range support.
“Its important that student associations speak in a unified manner. We need to be on the same page as other universities in the area,” GUSA Junior Class Representative and proposer of the Students’ Bill of Rights, Marty LaFalce (CAS ‘03) said.
Some members of GUSA, including Junior Class Representative Trey Street (SFS ‘03), expressed concerns as to what plan of action the bill advocated.
“There are a lot of supports, encourages and feels in [the wording of] this bill. It doesn’t seem to propose any specific action,” Street said.
According to LaFalce, the Students’ Bill of Rights would allow for the establishment of common goals on further actions, and that coordinated efforts, such as the campaign to e-mail Mayor Anthony Williams about possible discrimination against students and meeting on a regular basis with other university student associations.
