Student Congress lacks female representation

Every woman at UNC knows the statistic: Only about four of every 10 students on campus is male. But venture into the basement of Peabody Hall on a Tuesday night when Student Congress meets, and it’s a different story.

Leaders say the way members are elected and the way individuals seek seats make the organization fail to demographically or ideologically represent the student body.

Members remain divided as to whether this disconnect has an impact on the body’s fairness and effectiveness at distributing more than $350,000 in student fees to campus groups each year.

“Demographically, just in terms of race and gender, I don’t think we represent the student body,” said Speaker Pro Tem Dakota Williams. “I don’t know why that is, but it’s probably an issue that should be addressed.”

Williams said the large number of men — more than two-thirds of the organization — is particularly noticeable, but he’s not sure how he would go about including more women and minorities.

“Ideally, we would be more representative and more proportional,” he said. “But I don’t know how to fix it, other than to encourage everyone to run.”

Maggie Zhou, one of only four female undergraduate representatives, said she would like to see more women but is unsure if the gender divide has an impact on congressional politics.

Zhou said she worries that the large numbers of men could potentially dissuade female members from joining.

“There can definitely be a guy’s club atmosphere,” she said. “You want your representative body to be open to as many types of people as possible.”

While Congress has faced criticism in past years for being too conservative, an organized group of Young Democrats were elected to the body last spring. Members said this group of five has shifted the organization leftward.

Young Democrats has 732 UNC students paying dues this semester.

Two members of Congress are registered members of the College Republicans, which has 98 dues-paying members on campus. These two, and one additional member, are also affiliated with the Carolina Review, a conservative publication on campus.

Members maintain that the demographics of the group have no measurable impact on the body’s ability to distribute money to student groups and debate legislation.

“I don’t think demographics necessarily play a role in judging cases that come before Congress,” said representative Anthony Dent, who is a member of the Carolina Review and the College Republicans.

“Naturally we should be neutral in terms of political viewpoints, so really, demographics shouldn’t play a role in influencing decisions one makes in Congress at all.”

The body is required by law to ignore groups’ viewpoints — religious, political, or other — when deciding whether or not to fund them.

Dent said he does not let his political viewpoints affect the decisions he makes in Congress, and would not imagine that others do differently.

Williams and Zhou both said they would like to alter the districts students are elected from to reflect students’ class year rather than place of residence. The change would require a revision of the Student Code.

They said this will better represent the overall body and encourage more representative candidates to run. Most of the undergraduate members in Congress are either sophomores or juniors.

Williams and Zhou also said the timing of elections, which take place in the spring, exclude freshmen from participating. They both said they would like to change that.

“Because the flaw is as base as who is running, I think it’s easily fixed simply by encouraging more people to run,” Williams said. “I can’t stress enough that if people don’t like what we’re doing then they need to run.”



Contact the University Editor at udesk@unc.edu.