The Veishea tradition is no longer one of a student-run festival to celebrate the university but rather has come to stand for the incompetence of the GSB to be anything other than a puppet government manipulated by the administration’s iron fist.

The “hard line” GSB took against the administration was merely symbolic and quite pathetic indeed.

President Jischke repeatedly insulted the integrity of the GSB by declaring that the GSB holds only subordinate legislative powers to the authoritarian decree of the administration.

After Jischke refused to accept the idea of GSB sharing an “equal” role with the administration concerning university policy regarding the festival, senators rushed to appease Jischke by suggesting the quite ambiguous term “significant” replace the more assertive and definite “equal.”

Although only a single word, the change in language is a clear concession made by the GSB to willingly accept a subordinate role to the administration in the policy making not only of university affairs but also of student organizations (as supposedly Veishea is).

GSB signed away all credibility it may have had as a true governing power in order to appease the status quo, the sentimental pleas of the resume builders of the Veishea committee and the white-washed ultimatums of the administration.

The current trend of increased corporate and other special interest investments in the university has created a bureaucracy with a large amount of unchecked power over the affairs of the university and subsequently the affairs of the student body.

A legitimate government of the student body must struggle for increased jurisdiction and oversight over these administrative units rather than accepting concession after concession in order to keep “in good terms” with the administration.

Perhaps the analogy is too extreme, but there came a time when the parliaments of colonial America found the restrictions imposed on them by bureaucratic influences in which they had no representation as too burdensome to bear.

At certain cruxes of history, the harmonious relations with authority and their traditions must be suspended for the advance of the greater democratic good.

GSB has shown its institutional incompetence in this pursuit, and unless earnest attempts are made soon to demand real power, GSB must not be recognized by the students as their legitimate representative government and the struggle for democratic rule taken on by other avenues.

I am not calling for some socio-anarchist overthrow of any institution or administration, rather I am appealing for an earnest dialogue to dramatically reform a system which has been burdened with appointments and priorities other than those of its students and scholars.

Furthermore, it is not only about the politics of ISU, but as students, as a new generation of citizens of the world, we must prepare ourselves to organize in the defense and reformation of our political system against all interests that compromise our continuing quest towards the democratic ideal.

Although the nature of this struggle must always remain non-violent and because the administration refuses to open up the dialogue and GSB is all too ready not to press the issue, I conclude with a phrase that I hope will strike a chord with many students and be cited repeatedly until students are given their proper vote in the affairs of their university: FIGHT Veishea.

Ed Snook

Senior

English