University of Virginia Library

Another Chance

For years now, the Judiciary Committee
has been the poor relation of student
government at the University; considering the
state of student government, that's pretty
poor. The Honor Committee has its own
well-defined jurisdiction and power. Student
Council at least deals with issues that concern
most students. But the Judiciary Committee
has concerned itself primarily with road-trip
excesses and other traditional forms of
student misconduct which have largely passed
from the scene with the traditional student.

So not too many people care about the
Judiciary Committee. But there will come a
time, perhaps when students take over a
building and the Governor demands that they
be expelled or perhaps when the narcotics
agents decide the time has come to lay some
heat on Charlottesville, that students will
want to have a student group with the power
to deal with such matters for the University.

When that time comes, the Judiciary
Committee will be important, in one of two
ways. Either it will be capable of dealing with
something of that sort or it will not. It all
depends on the success, or lack of same,
encountered in the current constitutional
referendum.

In three days of voting last week, only 23
per cent of the full time students bothered to
vote on the new constitution: those that did
approved it overwhelmingly. The Committee
still needs the votes of some 1600 students in
order to obtain the 40 per cent quorum
necessary to act on a new constitution. It is
extending the referendum through Wednesday
and going to the length of placing ballots in
dormitory and professional school mailboxes
in order to bring out the vote, especially in
the College, Engineering, Education, and
Graduate Business Schools where the turnout
has been lowest thus far.

Take the time to vote.