The IU Student Association Congress passed four resolutions and tabled one resolution at an IUSA Congress assembly meeting Monday.
Representatives passed a resolution that supports allowing students, particularly transgender students, to list their preferred name, instead of their legal name, on their student ID cards.
“It really puts transgender students at the forefront, in terms of their rights and their interests,” Will Wartenberg, IUSA vice president of ?Congress said.
Their legal name will still be printed in small, but legible, text on the back of the student ID card.
Current students will be able to request that their preferred name be used on replacement student ID cards at the standard student ID card replacement cost, ?Wartenberg said.
Though the resolution targets transgender students, it applies to all students who go by a name other than their legal name, Wartenberg said.
“So you’re being identified as what you currently are going by,” Wartenberg said.
Representatives tabled a resolution that would support changing the way students can donate to student organizations.
When students register for classes, they are presented with the option to donate to a list of student organizations, Wartenberg said.
A committee currently decides which organizations make the list, putting the power primarily in the hands of the faculty, Wartenberg said. Changes supported by the resolution puts the power in the hands of the students.
Changes supported by the resolution require 10 percent of the student body to sign a petition in support of the organization to add the organization to the spring IUSA general election ballot, Wartenberg said. Twenty percent of the student body must then vote in support of the organization during the Spring IUSA general election to add the organization to list.
Students must currently opt in to donate to the organization, Wartenberg said. Changes supported by the resolution instead force students to opt out to not donate to the organization.
Concerns regarding the portion of the resolution that forced students to opt out to not donate rather than opt in to donate forced the assembly to table the resolution until the next meeting.
Representatives also passed a resolution showing IUSA’s support of the Fossil Fuel Divestment Initiative.
The Graduate and Professional Student Organization, the Student Sustainability Council, SPEA’s Graduate Student Association, the Environmental Management and Sustainable Development Association and the IU Southeast Student Government have already shown their support of the initiative.
The initiative has proposed that the IU Foundation divest from the top 200 fossil fuel companies within the next five years.
“We do share the belief of people working all around the country and all around the world on this issue, that divestment is a necessary step, a necessary statement to make on multiple levels,” GPSO Sustainability Officer Andrew Bredeson said. “There are moral implications, ethical implications.”
Finally, representatives passed a resolution that supports researching extended Campus Café hours and a resolution that supports setting double-sided printing as the default setting on all ?campus computers.
