The Undergraduate Council of Students held its final general body meeting of the semester Wednesday evening, in which it unanimously amended the Campus of Consent Bill and brainstormed questions for tonight’s Title IX Town Hall.
The Council voted to allow all Category III student groups — which receive a minimum of $200 from the Undergraduate Finance Board — to send one representative to trainings organized by UCS and student groups such as the Sexual Assault Peer Education program. Each student trained can only represent a single group, said UCS Treasurer Austin Lessin ’19, who read the amendment aloud ahead of the vote. Category III groups that do not comply with the bill risk losing their categorization and their funding.
The bill has undergone several revisions since the Council first passed it in January 2017 with the endorsement of 100 student groups.
Previously, the bill required all Category III student groups to send two representatives to these trainings. Representatives were permitted to attend trainings on behalf of up to three clubs, The Herald previously reported. The latest version of the bill changes these requirements.
The amendments approved by the general body last night made official certain requirements that were outlined in a version of the bill sent to the student body by UCS President Shanzé Tahir ’19 and Vice President Camila Pelsinger ’20 in a Nov. 6 email.
The Council made these amendments based on the recommendations of SAPE, the Masculinity 101 Peer Educators and the Peer Mental Health Advocates, which have partnered with UCS on the bill’s implementation, Lessin said.
UCS hosted pilot trainings for the bill this semester with those three groups, and “at least two more sets of trainings” will be held next semester, according to the text of the bill sent to the student body.
Next, the Council discussed the town hall it is co-hosting tonight with the Title IX Office and Brown’s chapter of NARAL Pro-Choice America to discuss the changes to sexual misconduct regulations under Title IX proposed by the Department of Education in late November. These guidelines allow universities to choose between two different standards of evidence; they also intend to define sexual harassment clearly and narrow the scope of the Title IX investigations of sexual misconduct, The Herald previously reported.
“A lot of people are rightfully concerned about what this means for current and future survivors,” said Chair of Student Wellness Shivani Nishar ’20.
The town hall “will be primarily a space for (Title IX Program Officer Rene Davis) to kind of break down the legislation and what it actually means,” Nishar added.
Members of the general body reviewed a Huffington Post story concerning the proposed Title IX guidelines and then brainstormed questions for the town hall.
Tahir thanked those in attendance for their work with UCS this semester at the meeting’s close.
