The IU Student Association spent the majority of its voting meeting Tuesday night debating the diversity and qualifications of three IUSA Supreme Court justice nominees. After more than fifty minutes of discussion, all three appointees were voted in with only one dissent for each candidate
Several representatives expressed concern that all three nominees present were men and Kelley School of Business majors and said they felt the supreme court could not accurately represent the diversity of the student body if its members were all from a certain demographic.
The three nominees present for the meeting were Stephen Browne, Scott Munson and Paul Yoon.
Jack Ryan, chief justice of the IUSA Supreme Court, was also present to speak for the greater supreme court. Three other nominees were absent.
“I think that we have made pushes being more diverse in our selection process,” Ryan said. “We can’t control who applies to us, but we are making efforts to go out into the larger IU community. I don’t think there are systematic issues with the way we select people. I think we take the best-qualified applicants available.”
All three nominees presented short biographies and arguments for why they should be confirmed as justices to IUSA Congress. They then left the room to allow Congress to discuss.
Some representatives said nominees should be selected based on their qualifications, not their demographics.
These points were countered by the argument that the Supreme Court of the United States had ruled juries that are overly represented by a certain race or gender could have bias in how they hear a case.
The IUSA Supreme Court is selected through a committee set up by current IUSA President Sara Zaheer. This process concerned some Congress representatives, some of whom brought up worries that applicants for the position were not vetted properly and the committee was biased to applicants similar to themselves.
Congress moved to reform the selection process for next year.
“It lets me give back in a very tangible way,” Browne said. “I really want to feel like I’m providing some worthy experience back to the community.”
After some debate, Congress passed a resolution that would allow students to bring pepper spray into Assembly Hall, a practice that had previously been banned for fear of a malfunction that might hurt other students.
Two other resolutions — one on a temporary IUSA budget freeze in order to review the budget more thoroughly and one to confirm a new representative from the School of Informatics and Computing — were tabled until a later date .
