Your Turn Letters to the Editor

I want to respond to your March 29 article entitled “Sex worker art show won’t return to campus.” In particular, this show was an important addition to campus programming and it will return despite Reuban Rodriguez’ reactionist claims to the contrary. Undeniably, sex workers are a part of the fabric of the urban “campus” that makes up VCU and the surrounding areas. The Sex Workers’ Art Show presented students with the opportunity to hear from sex workers in their own words. Far too often, sex workers are marginalized and silenced by both an oppressive legal systems and by misogyny, homophobia and transphobia.

The Sex Workers’ Art Show contained performance art and spoken word pieces that allowed sex workers to display their full personhood beyond the one-dimensional service providers depicted in popular media. Even the one incident of full nudity which titillated to excitement everyone from Bob Marshall to Pat Robertson focused on an artful critique of rape as a despicable tool so often deployed in military conflict. Aside from the educational value of the Sex Workers’ Art Show, Bob Marshall is notorious for, year after year, grasping at loonier and loonier legislative theatrics to codify his narrow-minded religious opinions into Virginia law. His recent investigation into limiting what students can do with student activity fees without infringing on First Amendment protections if laughable. It can’t be done despite what sort of buy-in he may get from our state’s equally inclined Attorney General. Any such attempt would violate the First Amendment.

Equally ludicrous are Rodriguez’ claims that he can prevent the Sex Workers’ Art Show from returning to campus if it were funded with non-tax dollars. VCU is a public institution that continually touts its diversity. To ban a program simply because of its “edgy” nature would violate basic academic freedom and void any sort of diversity claims put forward by VCU. Furthermore, I am disgusted by VCU parents’ notions that they have any say in what programming comes to campus. VCU is a unique and special university in that many of its students are not traditional, right-out-of-high-school students whose parents are footing their tuition bill. Many students, including myself, pay our own tuition and our own student activity fees. Parents of students have no say in how these are spent.

It is time to cut the umbilical cord and let your children think for themselves. They weren’t forced to attend the Sex Workers’ Art Show and they weren’t prevented from leaving if they took offense to its content. In fact, we would have welcomed them leaving since some of the 100-plus people who had to be turned away from the “sold-out” free performance could have taken their seats. To Marshall and Rodriguez: Be careful about making threats of banning programming. You just might find yourself in the precarious position of running a public university while simultaneously violating the U.S. Constitution.

-Lindsey Oliver

As a former (and seasoned) cabinet member of the executive branch of the Student Government Association, in addition to having served an active year on the University Hearing Board, I pride myself in having developed a sense of honesty and dedication to causes important not only to students but to others encountered in the daily discourses and occurrences in life and work. Integrity has always been a benchmark to strive for in life; my parents taught that to me from a young age and my academic and extracurricular experience reinforced it. I did, after all, transfer to VCU from Hampden-Sydney College, an institution that would not hesitate to throw out any student over even a “white lie” to another student over something as small as a borrowed item.

Honesty is a foundation of trust and moral aptitude and it will define our experiences and connections with the working world as we matriculate into it upon graduation. Having completely abstained from campaigning last year, I will readily admit that I campaigned this year for a certain ticket, one which was not the alleged victor. On the issue of power of attorney, Jessica Lee would need to produce a notarized document, thus signed and dated, in order to prove that she did legally produce a power of attorney before the signature by Emad Maghsoudi was made on a technically legal and state document-the signed packet allows for a grade check-which is strictly confidential material by law and is only available to said student and (I believe) counsel through signature. This document, however, was not even requested by the judicial board in their deliberations over the validity of the election grievances.

On second note, I personally saw, along with two other people, Jessica Lee near the computers in the library on one occasion for an extended amount of time. She was sitting at the computers while her campaign handbills were placed all over the desks next to the computers on the first floor in the library. I even walked up next to her and took one of the handbills off of the table. She looked upset. My compatriot and I continued to collect all of her handbills from the tables, which amounted to close to 100 in number. Her campaign team was in the library while this was happening, as well. Library rules dictate that solicitations for any purpose cannot be conducted in or around the library. Her team was standing in front of doors, stopping students, later that same evening.

A security guard at Cabell even asked her to leave; he even told me that he did and signed an affidavit to submit for complaint. I was never called to testify under subpoena in the deliberations, much to my dismay, although I am currently working 60 hours a week at a downtown law firm and am stretched to find spare time during normal daylight hours. I think that it is a bit callous for Ms. Lee to personally write a letter to the students claiming a lack of guilt when I saw her personally campaigning inside of the library, which she so vehemently denies. I do not have an axe to grind; the election results won’t be changed based on the lack of will of the SGA justices to disqualify any candidate, henceforth leaving the way open for other dishonest individuals to commit rule violations in order to win future elections. I think that this issue rests on the school itself.

What remediable means are there to handle honor code violations for cases like this? Are SGA members the exception to the code itself? If not, why hasn’t anything been done by SGA judicial or the pertinent VCU administration and SGA advisers? When will the Honor Code be taken seriously?

-Robert J. Smith, III