The UNC Charlotte Student Government Association has recently been accused of “violating state laws” because of the fact that the SGA Senate formulated and published an opinion on the transit tax issue in Mecklenburg County.
County Commissioner Bill James is highly deluded in believing that the UNC Charlotte administration or county officials had anything to do with our opinion. In a News 14 story (which also featured the SGA side of the story) Bill James said:
“Why UNCC would do this through the SGA is unknown,but you should inform them that as an organization [that] is financed by NC state dollars, their actions are breaking the law,” said James in an email received by News 14 Carolina. “Further, UNCC … is breaking the law by allowing their government-run web site and e-mail system to be used for these purposes.”
Another individual that was opposed to the transit tax even stated that our “heads were full of mush”.
We are fully entitled to our first amendment rights in student government because we receive our funding from student fees instead of tax money, so I sent this response to the detractors:
Mr. James and Mr. Bishop,
The Student Government Association at UNC Charlotte is fully supported by student fees, including the web
server which hosts our website. Because we are funded by student fees, we have full first amendment protection and have the ability to weigh in on any issue in any manner. If this is not the case, then we will
need to cease the operations of our College Republicans and College Democrats which are supported by the same student fees that allow SGA to operate.If there are any laws that our opinion is violating, please point them out to us so that we can adhere to them.We
are completely separate from the university in funding and in opinion.No members of the UNC Charlotte administration or the county government made an attempt, intentional or unintentional to sway our opinion on the transit tax issue. Our senators researched the issue independently
and formulated the conclusion posted on our website. Even though SGA has reached this opinion, we still welcome
open debate and discussion. We have invited all of our 240+ student organizations representing over 22,000 students and the local community to the Transit-Tax debate on Oct. 23rd at 7pm in the UNC Charlotte Harris Alumni Center between Keith Larson and Jennifer Roberts moderated by Charlotte 49er alumnus Jason Saine.I’ll hope to see you both there.
The outcry against our decision clearly stems from the love that the transit tax opponents have in blaming UNC Charlotte for all of their problems.
The real story here is that some of our elected county officials don’t think that students can form their own opinions on local issues. I hope that now they have learned differently.
October 23rd, 2007 at 9:00 pm
[...] here for full story Der Beitrag wurde am Sunday, den 14. October 2007 um 21:44 Uhr [...]