Illinois Students Demand ‘Substantial Consequences’ For Non-Inclusive Actions

The student senate at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) is considering a bill that would demand “substantial consequences” for any student groups that engage in behavior that is deemed insufficiently inclusive.

The proposed bill comes five months after a controversial campus party co-hosted by the fraternity Acacia and the sorority Alpha Phi. Numerous guests at the party wore ethnically-themed clothing such as sombreros and turbans, arousing complaints about “cultural appropriation.” At the time of the party, a group of student activists called “Not Just A Party” demanded the suspension of the two Greek organizations, mandatory sensitivity training, and several other tough punishments in response to the costumes.

Those demands weren’t met at the time, but now members of UIUC’s student government are trying to ensure that any future infractions against inclusivity are dealt with more harshly.

If a bill titled Diversity and Inclusion Action Plan 13 is passed, UIUC’s student senate will officially demand that school administrators “create more substantial consequences for communities, such as registered student organizations, registered organizations, related organizations, and Greek organizations, involved in behavior that is not culturally inclusive, engaged in acts of intolerance, or engaged in acts that violate community standards.”

The bill doesn’t elaborate on what those “substantial consequences” might be, nor is it clear what the threshold is for a behavior to be “intolerant” or culturally uninclusive.

Some members of the government argued the bill would infringe on students’ freedom of expression.

“If you want to dress up in something offensive; if you want to wear a mustache and sombrero like I’ve seen many times in Red Lion, that’s your right to do so,” student senator Alex Villanueva said, according to The Daily Illini. “At the end of the day, you’re embarrassing yourself.”

Supporter Spencer Haydary countered that offensive “hate speech” isn’t a protected right (though under current Supreme Court precedent, it is)

“This isn’t necessarily punishing freedom of speech because no freedom in the Constitution is absolute, and that includes hate speech,” Haydary said, according to The Daily Illini. “So if it comes to something like that, and the proper investigation has been taken, then something like that should have consequences, repercussions, whatever you want to call it.”

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