SUNY Cortland’s Student Government Association (SGA) granted official recognition to a chapter of Turning Point USA (TPUSA) as a campus club at 8 p.m., Monday, March 4. This decision, which was made the night before the biweekly SGA senate meeting of March 5, was a reversal from the denial of recognition by student senators last November.
In an SGA senate meeting held on the evening of March 5, 2024, it was announced by a Review Committee member that TPUSA had successfully attained official club status following a period of contention and legal action.
This decision follows a lawsuit filed against SUNY Cortland and the SGA by TPUSA after the initial denial of recognition by student senators. Details of the lawsuit can be found HERE.
The meeting proceeded with routine updates from the Faculty Senate, NYPIRG, and the SGA advisor. However, a notable shift occurred when the senate entered an Executive Session with legal counsel. During this closed-door session, only the SGA council and designated representatives were present. The discussions were confidential and inaccessible to external parties.
Emerging from the executive session, attention turned to the Review Committee’s proposal for amendments to the club’s bylaws and constitution. Senate meeting protocol dictates that such changes are communicated to student senators prior to the meeting and listed on the agenda. However, in this instance, these standards were not met, leaving senators with limited time to process the proposed alterations.
This proposed amendment addressed one of the core complaints highlighted in TPUSA’s lawsuit against SUNY Cortland.
According to the lawsuit, SUNY Cortland’s non-recognition policy “imposes no criteria guiding the Student Government’s discretion. So Defendants Student Government and Bitterbaum can withhold recognized student organization status for any reason or no reason at all.”
Student senators have never been given a set of criteria to base their decisions on when approving or denying club access.
In time to ask questions about what this change in the Review Committee’s bylaws would mean, a cap was imposed on the number of questions senators could pose, restricting thorough examination of the proposed revisions.
The amendment, in short, would take away student senators’ vote in the approval of a new club and leave the decision entirely to the Review Committee.
The vote proceeded, resulting in a majority decision to amend the bylaws, with student senators effectively voting to take away their own power to approve or deny student organizations. Notably, a substantial number of senators abstained from voting, a departure from typical voting patterns. (40 in favor, 23 abstained, 7 denied)
Speaking with various SGA senators after the meeting, all of whom have asked to stay anonymous, they expressed feeling pressured into their votes. Many were also upset that no further options were explored to ensure fairness in the voting process, instead leaving senators to vote upon what felt, as one senator put it, “like the only option.”
Student senators also spoke about their decision to deny TPUSA club status last semester. The senators said they did not vote with personal bias but with facts.
When communicating with The Fix, TPUSA Vice President Megan Rothmund shared her thoughts on the situation. “The university discriminated against TPUSA by not allowing our group to function on campus because it did not agree with our group’s views.”
It was brought up in the initial meeting that TPUSA had violated numerous SGA policies, including publishing the club officers online before being granted official status and an unapproved tabling event outside of a class building earlier in the semester. According to the requirements for a new club at SUNY Cortland, “The club must follow all university and SGA policies.”
This is one of the main reasons many senators say they voted to deny TPUSA. Another reason was a “concerning” clause in the proposed constitution.
From the constitution TPUSA submitted for approval, the non-discrimination clause stated “Turning Point USA at SUNY Cortland shall not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, gender identity, age, national or ethnic origin, disability, military status or status of a veteran, or on the basis of sexual, racial, ethnic orientation in the selection of its members or its program unless federal or state law allows for such exceptions.”
During the vote, the student senator representing Student Veterans questioned language from the clause, saying “In other non-discrimination clauses from other campus clubs, I didn’t see any language that made it seem like it might be permissible to discriminate if state law allows for such exceptions…It is kind of an alarming sentence and I’m wondering when that would come into effect.”
In their decision to approve the TPUSA chapter, it is unclear whether the Review Committee considered these concerns raised by the SGA.