Student Government passed an Emergency Response Amnesty policy and got rid of caucuses at its Senate meeting Wednesday.
The amnesty policy will urge the Dean of Students to include drug- and alcohol-related emergencies in its Emergency Amnesty Policy. The policy will encourage students or organizations to call for help if they are in situations with someone who has abused alcohol or drugs and requires medical attention. This policy will protect the caller and student in need from getting into trouble with the Student Code of Conduct.
Senator Jacob Boudreaux said some people may view this as a get-out-of-jail-free card, but that isn’t the case. The policy states that it will only protect students from University punishment, but not from violations with the federal, state or local law.
The policy also states the students can only receive emergency response amnesty once and may have to participate in educational programs such as counseling before receiving amnesty.
Boudreaux said not all the plans are in place, but this is an idea that will be discussed with departments involved in this possible policy.
Changes in the SG bylaws removed caucuses and replaced them with delegations. Caucuses are groups inside of the Senate that represent a group of students based on their religion, race or culture that help create concepts of legislation.
Speaker Alex Grashoff said the intent of caucuses was good, but they became too bureaucratic.
“There were issues with forming and accomplishing its true purpose with its structure in place. We are just changing the mentality of having representation without having approval to have it,” Grashoff said.
The caucuses were required to have the Senate write legislation, vote on approving the caucus and appointing chair and vice chairs of the organization. Grashoff proposed delegations instead, which would have a member of SG represent a group of people.
Grashoff said a delegate would come to the organization’s meeting and represent it in Senate.
While caucuses may be finished in SG, Senator De Andre Beadle said he will continue the Black Caucus within the Office of Multi-Cultural Affairs.
SG also passed a resolution that requests LSU Dining and Auxiliary services to have food truck vendors on campus.
In another resolution SG urged the University to have different options for collecting prohibited items through athletic entry gates. Instead of having umbrellas or pocketknives confiscated, Senator Katherine Latham suggested a check-in area for those items.