Barack Obama’s new Supreme Court nominee is stealing your act:

I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life,” said Judge Sotomayor, who is now considered to be near the top of President Obama’s list of potential Supreme Court nominees.

It’s nice to see that the President of the United States is nominating an open believer in race-based identity politics to the highest court in the land.

Ilya Somin at The Volokh Conspiracy weighs in:

I am not yet sure what position to take on President Obama’s selection of Sonia Sotomayor. My general sense is that she is very liberal, and thus likely to take what I consider to be mistaken positions on many major constitutional law issues. I am also not favorably impressed with her notorious statement that “a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.” Not only is it objectionable in and of itself, it also suggests that Sotomayor is a committed believer in the identity politics school of left-wing thought. Worse, it implies that she believes that it is legitimate for judges to base decisions in part on their ethnic or racial origins.

Once again the mask slips and the race politics espoused by people like Diego Hernandez, the Commentator’s erstwhile punching bag Nate Gulley, and Sonia Sotomayor is exposed as little more than racism by another name.

The following is the document sent to Sen. Lauren Zavrel, chair of the Personnel Committee, by Derek Nix about the confrontations between Nix and Sen. Nate Gulley, which led to Nix resigning from his post as Senate Administrative Assistant. Read the rest of this entry »

In lieu of the recent comments by Senator Nate Gulley in last night’s Senate Meeting (see thread below) the Commentator would like to highlight this message posted yesterday afternoon on Facebook by Senator Gulley:

Also, it’s a good thing I am going out of town this weekend. Because if some shit goes down, all the evidence is going to point to me. For example, my recent Google searches include:

“Rates of Spontaneous Combustion Among Greek-Americans”

…and…

“Top Ten Most Effective Ways to Throw a Hand Grenade at Targets That Rhyme With Smapailiou”

Alright Nate, calling fellow Senators racist in public is one thing, but suggesting deadly violence against the Senate President, Athan Papailiou, is one of the crudest, most despicable and immoral actions an elected representative of a student body can perform. This is a public threat toward a fellow official. We believe this type of behavior is detrimental to the ASUO Senate and is worthy of a recall. We encourage the entire student body along with the ASUO Senate and the ASUO Executive to hold government representatives accountable for actions that demean and demoralize the ASUO and the student body is serves.

Question: Sen. Nate Gulley and Osama bin Laden. What do they have in common? Answer to follow.

So this weekend, I took an experimental INTL class on ‘Militant Islam’, taught by Sociology/International Studies prof. Anita Weiss. We first studied the roots of Islam, how it started, and what some of its core values are. The general point of the class was to study the foundations of the faith and how it has become, in the average American mindset, such a militant and feared religion and culture.

Stemming from burns and wounds from the Crusades and European colonialism, many Islamic communities started different reform movements in the 1700s-1900s. Some called for more acceptance of the West, others said that Islam should be completely autonomous from the West, and yet others felt that the correct path of action was to overthrow their own governments and leaders for appeasing the infidels.

These are the roots of current Islamic extremism and militant-ness. At the core level, Islam actually has a check-and-balance system that says when the Islamic spiritual and political leaders are not following the religion, then the followers have a holy obligation to overthrow those leaders.

Osama bin Laden stated his mission as to destroy “infidel regimes, apostate rulers, and the ‘Crusader Alliance.'” The first and last are clearly the United States, Europe, and Israel. However, the second target, ‘apostate rulers’, refers to those Islamic leaders that have been lead astray by the West and gone against their roots and religion.

When I realized this, it resonated with something much closer in proximity. Something on campus. In essence, Osama bin Laden and these other militant groups are telling their spiritual and political leaders that they have ‘forgotten where they came from.’

Wait…where have I heard this before? Oh yeah. It seems like Osama bin Laden and Sen. Gulley have more in common than either thought. Perhaps bin Laden’s web-crawler will find this, realize how much he is like Gulley, and kill himself in shame.

I would like to take this moment to remind you to enjoy your upcoming spring break, because not everyone will. A certain ASUO Senator will be be hard pressed to enjoy his binge-drinking, frolicking-in-the-sun good time, because when he gets back, it’s ETHICS HEARING TIME!

Read the rest of this entry »

With our conflict of interest grievance against him dismissed, Senator Nate Gulley is firing back. In the Emerald’s coverage of the court’s ruling, Gulley is quoted as saying:

“Having the grievance against me unanimously dismissed is exactly what I expected. Nobody knows the rules better than Constitution Court and they obviously understand that I didn’t break any. Hopefully we can all keep our focus on votes that are actually contentious, like the racist attacks Senators (Jacob) Daniels, (Kyle) McKenzie, (Sara) Hamilton, (Athan) Papailiou, (Natalie) Kinsey, (Jonathan) Rosenberg, (Ashley) Sherrick, (Karen) Trippe, (Jeremy) Ebner, and (Jacqueline) Justice continue to make against programs.

Ok, wait, full stop… racist attacks? That’s it, Nate Gulley is officially this year’s apotheosis of Everything That Is Wrong With The ASUO. For the record, the Senators he is attacking include an African-American, a Jewish-American, a Korean-American, and a first-generation Greek-American…. but they are the racists. Also for the record, this is the dude accusing over half the Senate of racism.

Gulley: Pretty fly for a douchebag.

This is the oldest play in the ASUO douchebag book: accuse anyone who disagrees with you of racism, even if you are just another pudgy white dude from Cleveland. Only in the ASUO does someone get off the hook for an ethics breach on a technicality, and then have the gall to attack everyone else on Senate. Oh, and he also said I could kiss his ass. My only reply to that is that he is so busy making himself look like an ignorant twit that I’d only get in the way if I tried to help.

It’s official: there is no law in the ASUO constitution against blatant conflict of interest. The Constitutional Court of the ASUO ruled today that Senator Nate Gulley was not in violation of the ASUO constitution when he voted  “aye” on a special request for $2,000 which paid for him to travel to Washington DC as a member of a United States Student Association delegation. The courts ruling  denied the grievance filed by myself, by ignoring the obviousness of the violation  and by shunning the numerous constitutional interpretations which could have done justice to the situation. The courts ruling was timid and inconsistent, picking and choosing precedent in order to avoid the obviousness of the violation.

The cornerstone of my grievance was article 4 S 6, which states “Conflict of interest prohibited. No member holding an elected position on the Student Senate, the ASUO Programs Finance Committee, the Athletic Department Finance Committee, or the EMU Board may vote on the budget of any ASUO or EMU program in which they will be holding a paid position during the year the fiscal budget is in effect. This section shall be construed so as to prohibit conduct that creates the appearance of a conflict of interest, as well as an actual conflict of interest.” The opinion of the court begins by stating that “Article 4 § 6 of the ASUO Constitution is perhaps one of the most confusing and vague passages of the entire document” due to its narrow prohibition in sentence two, and broadly interpretable clauses in sentences 1 and 3. The court then goes on to overrule its own precedent from 1997(Berwick v. Wisch), in which the broad interpretations were used to find a Senator guilty of” the appearance conflict of interest,” simply ruling that “The Court finds the conclusion reached in this case to be in error.” What follows is a lengthy history of section 4 S 6, which in effect limits the broad clauses (sentences 1 and 3) to cases covered by the narrow definition (sentence 2). Lengthy analysis of the history and evolution of section 4 S 6 simply obfuscate the fundamental point: IF THEY ONLY APPLY TO THE ONE EXPLICIT PROSCRIPITION, WHY IN THE FUCK WERE THESE BROADLY INTERPRETABLE CLAUSES PUT INTO THE CONSTITUTION IN THE FIRST PLACE??? Yes, Mr Justices, the narrow clause has been altered, but the broad clauses have always been there, for the simple reason that the framers wanted to be able to proscribe obvious cases of conflict of interest without enumerating every possible permutation of such conflict. By overruling existing precedent which allows the Con Court to use these broad clauses as the framers intended, Con Court effectively legislates these clauses out of our functional jurisprudence. 

 It goes without saying that the ASUO Con Court has precedent which rules both ways on this. The court cites several cases in which the “narrow only” definition is upheld, including most recently the case of Mann v. Morales, in which then OC Editor Thomas Mann charged that IFC member Armando Morales “had violated Article 4 § 6 of the ASUO Constitution during a meeting of the IFC by arguing in favor of, and voting for, an increase in the budget of the USSA, a group which he was the vice chair of. Mann maintained that although Morales was not being paid in cash for his position in the program, he had participated in a trip to Washington D.C. partially funded from the programs budget and this was a form of payment. Furthermore Mann argued that Morales violated the third sentence of Article 4 § 6 by creating at least the appearance of a conflict of interest.” Apparently, the wierd parallels were more than the Con Court could overlook, and upheld the decision in that case, that the court “is not empowered” to change the admittedly “very narrow definition of a conflict.” Mr Mann, if you are out there, we need to have a beer sometime… this shit is crazy.

My grievance also charged Gulley with violating Senate Rule 2,3 which requires meetings be run according to Roberts Rules of Order. This was included to provide more examples of conflict of interest than are found in the ASUO constitution, thus giving extra weight to my emphasis of the broad clauses of ASUO Constitution 4 S 6. Needless to say, the Con Court simply looked to the wording to find any way to do nothing about the situation. Roberts only states that “members should abstain,” and that they cannot be compelled to vote, despite my argument that the “should” language is only intended to explain the following section which includes situations which require this non-binding language. It goes without saying, that Gulleys actions do not fit into this “exceptions clause,” suggesting that he should be held to account.

I could go on and on about this, but let’s face it: the only difference it will make is a dramatic spike in my blood pressure. When I was drafting the grievance, I was shocked by the lack of explicit ethics rules on the books; now that I have put in the work to build the case, I am really not surprised at all that the Con Court simply preferred to pass the buck. The opinion they issued doesn’t begin to  address the fact that Gulley’s conflict came in a vote on a special request, which should have a much more stringent ethical standard for the simple fact that it involves  Senate literally handing out cash. This whole situation is doubly frustrating for me, because unlike some (most?) of the Commentariat before me, I have consistently offered the ASUO the benefit of the doubt and my sincere optimism for the institution, only to end up here. As someone who sits on two Senate committees, and spends more time trying to make things right on this campus than some Senators (without a fucking stipend, thank you) while raising awareness and giving constructive advice and criticism on this blog and in the magazine, I am totally disgusted with this system that I have struggled to help reform. The ASUO desperately needs a body of ethics rules, and guess who’s gonna have to write them up to get it done? Think Senators are gonna leap up and volunteer for this? No fucking way.

The Emerald is running an editorial today, calling for Senator Nate Gulley to face “stern censure by an impartial jury of his peers” for obviously violating conflict of interest in a Senate vote. Mentioning the Commentator grievance as “a convincing case that Gulley violated the ASUO Constitution, Robert’s Rules of Order and the Senate Rules,” the editorial concluded that Gulley did not deserve to lose his seat, but that he should face Senate censure.

I agree. We’d all be a lot better off if he weren’t in his seat, but it’s probably not worth the trouble. I just want to see him have to explain himself, and hopefully someone will try to defend him. Bring on the censure, I’ll be there with my popcorn!

While you’re over at the Emerald, check out Jobetta Hedelman’s monster three-part piece on Wednesday’s Senate meltdown. Oh, and DPS can’t account for tens of thousands of dollars too. Crazy shit.

The Commentator has filed a grievance today with the ASUO against Senator Nate Gulley, for his blatant conflict of interest in voting “aye” for a special request that funded a trip to a conference that he is to attend, when other Senators who are also to attend abstained. Read more about the incident in question here. Gulley’s actions exemplify all that is wrong with the culture of the ASUO: the sense of entitlement, the lack of representation, the insider sweetheart deals, the lack of ethics, and the complete disregard for rules and basic propriety. I urge Senate to move to censure Gulley, or risk being seen as complicit in activities that have no place in a democracy. Senate should punish him as they see fit, and in doing so should send a strong message that this type of behavior has no place in the ASUO, particularly when done so blatantly and shamelessly. Read the Grievance for yourself…

***UPDATE***

I had filed a “Programs Grievance,” when what I wanted to do was file a Constitutional Court petition… that has now been rectified, including personally serving Gulley with the petition. Futhermore, I have requested that Senate Ombudswoman Natalie Kinsey pursue ethical violations against Gulley, pursuant to her job description in Senate Rules 3, 3 (e) of the Green Tape Notebook.

Via Reason, The Chronicle of Higher Education ran a great article about one of the Commentator’s favorite topics — intellectual diversity on campus. It starts by discussing the (somewhat eyebrow-raising) opening of a “Center for the Comparative Study of Right-Wing Movements” at Berkeley, and eventually moves into a broader discussion of the intellectual monoculture that’s evolved on college campuses over the last forty years:

Though we are no longer in the politically correct sauna of the 1980s and 1990s, and experiences vary from college to college, the picture [David Horowitz] paints of the faculty and curriculum in American universities remains embarrassingly accurate, and it is foolish to deny what we all see before us.

Over the past decade, our universities have made serious efforts to increase racial and ethnic diversity on the campus (economic diversity worries them less, for some reason). Well-paid deans work exclusively on the problem. But universities show not the slightest interest in intellectual diversity among faculty members. That wouldn’t matter if teachers could be counted on to introduce students to their adversaries’ books and views, but we know how rarely that happens.

[…]

Lyons was an American historian who wrote about the 60s and made no secret of his liberal politics or his loathing of Reagan and post-Reagan conservatism. But he was also disturbed by how few colleges offer courses on conservatism, treating it as a “pathology” rather than a serious political tradition…

The author, Mark Lilla, offers some anecdotal evidence of what happens when students are allowed the opportunity to take courses in conservative thought that are taught actively and honestly:

Lyons’s class was split almost evenly between liberal and conservative students, who had no trouble arguing with each other. They seemed to understand what thin-skinned professors wish to forget: that intellectual engagement is not for crybabies. The students had loud debates over Reagan’s legacy, Bush’s foreign policy, religious freedom, abortion, even the “war on Christmas”—and nobody broke into tears or ran to the dean to complain. And the more the students argued, the more they came to respect one another. According to Lyons, students learned that that conservative guy was no longer just the predictable gun nut or religious fanatic. And the conservative students learned that they had to make real arguments, not rely on clichés and sound bites recycled from Fox News. [emphasis added]

[…]

We should be grateful for his modest book, which has lessons for everyone. It reminds liberal academics of just how narrow-minded and conservative (in the nonpolitical sense) they are in their hiring and teaching, and how much they have to learn if they want to understand the political world we live in.

There are lessons for conservatives, too. Anti-intellectualism has always dogged conservative tradition (you betcha!), and figures like David Horowitz, who stoke the hysteria, only contribute to the dumbing down. Hopped up on Fox News, too many young conservatives have become ignorant of the conservative intellectual tradition and incapable of engaging civilly with their adversaries. [emphasis added]

Or maybe it’s just more convenient for some to promulgate the “racist, gun-toting, religious nut” stereotype and continue to churn out the thoughtless, pliable Nate Gulley’s and Diego Hernandez’s of the world.

A new study shows that college students have a more positive racial outlook when placed in more diverse environments. From Inside Higher Ed:

One key finding was the generally positive impact on racial attitudes of living with someone of a different race. Students […] who lived with members of other ethnic groups showed statistically significant gains in comfort levels with people of different groups, having circles of friends beyond one’s own group, and a variety of other measures of tolerance toward different groups.

You don’t say!? Of course, the study also came to some other, less-positive conclusions. For example, the researchers also found that students who were members of largely homogeneous groups, such as student unions, fraternities and sororities, had decidedly un-cosmopolitan views:

The researchers examined the impact of membership in groups that are defined largely by race and ethnicity (such as black student unions) as well as membership in groups that do not have an explicit racial or ethnic mission, but have overwhelmingly white members (some fraternities and sororities). Generally, they found that a negative impact resulted from membership in these groups — white or minority — in which belonging to such a group led to an increase in feelings of victimization.

[…] [I]nvolvement with such groups also — in contrast to the more inclusive view of multiculturalism — increased students’ sense that they are victims and that all racial and ethnic groups are locked in “zero-sum competition.”

Why, who would have thought? We at the Commentator have certainly never experienced anything like that! (And I’m just cherry-picking there. The links could go on ad douchebageum.)

But getting back to the main conclusion of the study: Even if students benefit from more diverse environments, it would be a shame if universities used it as a precedent for foisting more ham-fisted diversity plans on students.

Oh, by the way, here’s the really weird/kind of funny part of the study:

The one exception to this positive impact was with Asian students as roommates: White and black students who lived with Asians tended to show increased prejudice against Asians on some measures after living with them.

P.S. Crossposted over at CAMPUS Magazine Online, where I also blog, and which has a fancy-pants new website.

On Wednesday, October 29th, right after I left the meeting, Senate decided to not include a “code of conduct” outlining the ethical responsibilities expected of ASUO Senators. This conduct code was based on the ethics bill authored by Senator Kate Jones and former Senator Neil Brown last school year (2007-2008).

Both Neil and Jones ran on the original Campaign for Change featuring Sara Hamilton and Athan Papiliou, which ran on a platform of ethical behavior and, as the name of the slate states, change. After sweeping the elections, Neil and Jones wrote the first ethics proposal in memorable history.

Read the rest of this entry »

I was browsing the Eugene Weekly blog when I ran across a link to this lovely “open letter” to women supporters of Hillary Clinton that reads like it might’ve been penned by Nate Gulley:

Your whiteness is showing.

…

…[O]n the first part of the above equation–the part where you insist voting against Obama is about gender solidarity–you are, for lack of a better way to put it, completely full of crap. And what’s worse is that at some level I suspect you know it. Voting against Senator Obama is not about gender solidarity. It is an act of white racial bonding, and it is grotesque.

If it were gender solidarity you sought, you would by definition join with your black and brown sisters come November, and do what you know good and well they are going to do, in overwhelming numbers, which is vote for Barack Obama. But no. You are threatening to vote not like other women–you know, the ones who aren’t white like you and most of your friends–but rather, like white men!

…

And how are we to understand that refusal–this sudden line in the proverbial sand–other than as a racist slap at a black man? You will vote for white men year after year after year–and are threatening to vote for another one just to make a point–but can’t bring yourself to vote for a black man, whose political views come much closer to your own, in all likelihood, than do the views of any of the white men you’ve supported before. How, other than as an act of racism, or perhaps as evidence of political insanity, is one to interpret such a thing?

Have an angry day.

Read the rest of this entry »

Mark Twain once said, “Never pick a fight with someone who buys their ink by the barrel.” Unfortunately, this is a lesson the ASUO Senate has not taken to heart. Editor-in-Chief of the ODE Laura Powers has already filed a spat of grievances, against the Senate for violating Oregon Public Meeting Law, and today she added another to the list.

The Senate Over-Realized Committee held a meeting on Tuesday to discuss the upcoming requests. This was illegal because (a) it was only announced five hours beforehand, instead of the required 24, and (b) the meeting included a non-binding, up-down vote on the requests. This was done in the name of “consensus building.”

When the Con Court prohibited the Senate “from implementing any rule, policy or resolution currently under review,” they went ahead and did it anyways. Likewise, when Senate President Athan Papailiou told senators not to bring up the clandestine meeting, Nate Gulley went ahead and did it anyways.

In response, Powers issued a broadside against the Senate in today’s ‘Ol Dirty, calling them out for blatantly disregarding OPML. Read excerpts from it, as well as a douchebaggy email from Nate Gulley, after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

I was just reading the Emerald’s story about the Oregon Action Team’s victory, and I noticed this interesting little tidbit:

 “It’s easy to buy an election,” Sen. Nate Gulley, a Rock the Yellow supporter said after hearing the results.

The Commentator wonders if Senator Gulley can provide any evidence whatsoever to back up his statement, or whether he’s just speaking from personal experience.

For his part, Diego Hernandez was quoted as saying that he hadn’t “even processed it yet,” which probably stems from the fact that he’s spent a significant portion of his processing power lately fulminating against white people in the comments section of the Daily Emerald, producing such gleaming pearls as:

Diversity, in the mind of the average white, heteronormative male is obviously or should be non-European…White people suddenly want to be included in the term diversity. This is why Affirmative Action is becoming weaker and scholarships that are meant for people of color are going to white people because diverse means something different.

and leading off with:

Wake is an idiot, he needs to wake up and stop being a racist, uneducated baboso. 

I am guessing your not educated about “race,” especially because Wake’s comment is obviously ignorant and racist, and because you used the term “Hispanic.” I don’t get my definitions from the encyclopedia, especially socially related terms. Race and Racism is so complex that you can major on it and get a Doctorate from the topic. Suddenly, I have to stay silent when I speak about race, because if I talk about it then it might loose it’s meaning.  [emphasis added]

After someone in the comments section (whom Hernandez claimed was “Sean Jin himself or someone associated with him or the neoliberal, neoconservative, ignorant Oregon Commentator” [Gosh, it’s so nice that you’re always thinking of us!!]) pointed out that his sentiments were coming dangerously close to breaching the University’s definition of “discriminatory harassment,” Hernandez suddenly made an about-face, claiming:

But anyway if you read what Wake said, it is obviously not racist, but I thought I should just do it to see what kind of dialogue would come of it. Very interesting stuff…   [emphasis added]

Between churning out such confused vitriol and denouncing Sean Jin’s “hate speech” about the Multicultural Center, it’s no wonder that Mr. Hernandez has been suffering a dearth of CPU power needed for processing the Oregon Action Team’s victory, leaving it to Nate Gulley to instead insinuate election fraud and further drag what remains of the ASUO’s reputation through the mud.

Congrats to the Oregon Action Team for shaking these tossers up a bit.