The Senate convened on Sunday to discuss a variety of issues, including chartering and recognizing clubs, planning upcoming outreach efforts and addressing how best to handle the latest developments in race relations on campus.

The Senate first heard a chartering request from One International, a club dedicated to advocating for the ending of extreme poverty. The Senate voted unanimously to grant One International chartering. Next came the Vietnamese Students’ Association, which laid out plans for a variety of programming it could run if chartered. The club was chartered by unanimous vote. Your Story International then approached the Senate for chartering. The Senate voted unanimously to charter the group.

The Brandeis Society of Asian Students and Engineers then asked the Senate for chartering. Student representatives from SASE cited the University’s low engineering presence on campus, and the Senate voted to charter SASE with a vote of nineteen to one. Finally, the Brandeis Superfan Club approached the Senate for recognition. The club proposed a series of events wherein the Superfan Club would work with other clubs to incentivize home game attendance by providing food, organizing tailgating events and helping ensure that the community knows that games are occurring. The Senate voted unanimously to recognize the club.

Next, Student Union President David Herbstritt ’17 took the podium to speak on behalf of the Executive Board and address the concern that in a recent email, the sentence “We, the Brandeis Undergraduate Student Union” might have implied that they spoke for the entire Union without the consent of the Senate. Herbstritt told the Senate that the email was the result of a long discussion and was not made lightly.

After Herbstritt left, the Senate further addressed mandatory bystander training for all Student Union personnel and discussed expanding this policy to include club leaders, as well. In committee chair reports, the Service and Outreach Committee chair, Executive Senator Hannah Brown ’19 reported that her committee had discussed expanding BranVan service to Waltham on the weekends. The Club Support Committee chair, Class of 2017 Senator Ryan Tracy, proposed a system wherein clubs would be required to submit monthly reports on what they have planned or accomplished, in an attempt to ensure that clubs are not receiving undeserved funding.

The Senate then confirmed the chairs of the newly-established Health and Safety Committee, appointing Senator at Large Nathan Grees ’19 and Foster Mods Senator Ari Matz ’17 unanimously to the position. Following the confirmation, the Senate considered a motion to issue a statement in solidarity and support with black students at the University. This motion was written to specify the Senate’s stance that while the senators agree that black lives matter, they have some reservations about openly supporting the Black Lives Matter movement.

Class of 2020 Senator Tal Richtman disagreed with phrasing that directly supports BLM because of the movement’s anti-Israel stance. He added that some of his Israeli constituents had come to him to voice their dissatisfaction with the Union’s prior statement.

The long deliberation that followed included a discussion about the broadness of the language that BLM has used, which many senators argued can contribute to these types of conflicts. The Senate moved to change the wording of the statement to highlight their support of the University’s black community without aligning itself to any one political group or movement.

In addition, a few other minor changes were made to the statement, amending awkwardly worded sentences and unforeseen implications. After the discussion, Brown emphasized to the Senate that the deliberation was “very important.” She made it clear to the Senate how proud she was that student government leaders were willing to voice their opinions, adding, “It’s important that if you have a dissenting opinion from the majority that you are not afraid to speak up.”

—Spencer Taft