Dean of Students Tells SGA It Can’t Ban Recording Senate Meetings

Photo by Patrick D. Lewis

By Patrick D. Lewis

The university official in charge of student affairs has ruled that the Student Government Association (SGA) can not ban attendees to Senate meetings from recording and quoting the meetings.

In an email to senators and members of the SGA executive team, Vice Provost for Student Affairs and Dean of Students Jon Sawyer said, “The purpose of the Recording Policy is to promote a campus environment that supports open dialogue while respecting personal privacy and discouraging secret recordings of private meetings or conversations. However, as noted in Section II (Scope), the prohibition of recording does not extend to public events. The policy expressly states that it ‘does not apply to the recording of town halls, conferences, or other public events hosted by the University or event sponsors.'”

The policy Sawyer referenced is the University Recording Policy. Sawyer continued, “In practice, this means that when a student organization advertises or opens an event to the broader campus community, such as through The Nest or other University channels, the event is treated as public. In those cases, the Recording Policy’s consent requirement does not apply, and attendees may record or report on what occurs. Conversely, when a group holds a private or closed meeting, limited to its members or invited guests, recordings without the consent of all participants would fall within the scope of the policy and would not be permitted.

“The SGA Constitution indicates that ‘all meetings shall be open to the University community and no undergraduate student shall be denied admittance to observe a meeting of the Senate unless by the process outlined in the Senate Bylaws.’  Thus, a Senate meeting is an open and public meeting that could be recorded without consent by observers in attendance.”

The comments came after the Senate passed a resolution and a bill that looked to prohibit anyone from recording Senate meetings as well as from quoting anyone at the meetings without the consent of every person in the room, normally well over 50 people. Only two senators voted against the two pieces of legislation, which were sponsored by Jack Hermes (Class of 2027). Juc Vanraes (Architecture) cosponsored both and Bennett Bert (Class of 2026) cosponsored the resolution. Senators Felipe Avila (Nursing) and Joshua Ortiz (Theology) were other strong supporters of the resolution and bill. Hermes, Avila, and others took aim at The Tower’s reporting on meetings during their speeches in support of the bill, calling the publication “fake news.”

The legislation was condemned by Senator Emma Bonney (Arts and Sciences), who called it “absurd” and said, “I’d rather be quoted than summarized, personally.” The other senator opposed was Austin Janssen (Class of 2027), who said he had concerns around the legislation’s relationship to the First Amendment.

Sawyer also said in the email, “Should the SGA Senate wish to reclassify Senate meetings as ‘closed or private’, SGA should follow the processes outlined in the SGA Constitution to amend that governing document.”

During the last Senate meeting, Hermes appeared to say that Sawyer’s office had told him the chamber could ban recording, “As far as the code of conduct goes, my point there with the reasonable directive, this was confirmed to be with people of Dean of Students, which is that we could make internal rules that are different than recording policies,” said Hermes.

SGA President Michael Kish did not reply to an email asking if he planned to veto the bill.