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The Daily Tar Heel

Letter: ?Self-governance must be protected

TO THE EDITOR:

I was incredibly disappointed by the editorial Monday calling for Congress to end UNC’s long history of entirely student-run self-governance.

There have always been those who thought that students were not up to the task, but time and time again, they have been proven wrong. Now, however, it seems that the fox has been invited into the hen house as the largest student media source and the student body president have announced their opposition to this tradition.

As I was asked to preside over the meeting, I was unable to voice my strong opposition to this bill in committee; however, let me say now that to compromise student self-governance in any way would be an absolute folly. I will be utterly ashamed if the 96th Student Congress goes down in our university’s history as the one that began allowing encroachments on student self-governance.

Now, there are certainly reforms that can be made, and they should absolutely be addressed. But students should not sit back and create a precedent of ceding student responsibilities to the administration.

As far as the problem of a lack of institutional knowledge in parts of student government, plans are already in the works with the Student Union to have student leaders briefed on standard practices and operations at the beginning of their term so they have access to that knowledge.

So not only is this bill an incredibly dangerous precedent, the alleged needs it seeks to meet are already being addressed.

Peter McClelland

Speaker Pro-Tempore

UNC Student Congress

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