Signage denoting the entrance to CUSG’s offices on the first floor of the UMC. Oct. 15, 2021 (Henry Larson/CU Independent
On Jan. 23, the University of Colorado Boulder’s Student Government Legislative Council advanced a resolution calling for building managers on CU Boulder’s campus to update building policy guidelines.
Resolution 102LCR01 would require each building to update policies and provide consequences for violations. It would also require registered student organizations to review each building policy and sign a contract to ensure that they understood said policies.
The resolution was authored by Education Senator Lauren Levey, Kendall Goldenson and Yehuda HaLevi. Levey is the prime sponsor.
102LCR01 was drafted in response to an increase of protests in shared indoor spaces and the variation in different building’s responses to those protests. The resolution urges building managers to align their policies to “uphold CU’s commitment to value free speech and student safety.”
“Unfortunately, each building has taken a different action to hold those accountable when feelings of uncertainty and safety rise among students, faculty and/or community members,” the resolution reads.
Under the resolution, building managers would be recommended to review policy guidelines every other month and make changes if necessary.
“We think that this is important because we want to uplift all voices on campus because we all have freedom of speech,” Goldenson said. “That’s so important that we all get to utilize that right.”
The resolution comes after a turbulent year of campus demonstrations by student groups supporting both Israel and Palestine. One of the resolution’s authors, HaLevi, is the president of the CU Boulder chapter of Students Supporting Israel.
A representative from Boulder Students for Justice in Palestine said that they feel the resolution may be an attempt to regulate the way that students use public spaces for free speech and protests, something they have frequently done during the past semester. Goldenson also noted that the resolution had been discussed with “Palestinian speakers” on her and Levey’s recent Perspectives Trip to Israel, a trip organized through CU Boulder Hillel.
“The language in it seems like they’re targeting a specific tactic that Boulder SJP has used as a protest tactic over the past semester that we call ‘study-ins,'” said the representative, who asked to remain anonymous out of fear of retaliation.
“We think that (the resolution) is an egregious overreach when it comes to freedom of expression and freedom of speech,” the SJP representative said. “It also seems incredibly hard to enforce and incredibly logistically difficult on the part of facilities management across campus.”
On Thursday, Feb. 6, the resolution passed its first reading and will return for a second reading in the following legislative session.
Levey, Goldenson and HaLevi all declined or did not respond to the CU Independent’s request for comment.
Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Ainsley Coogan at Ainsley.coogan@colorado.edu
