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- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Archives Revels Classifieds Real Estate Menu Guide Wedding Weather Subscribe Contact Us May 25, 2005 SOU students pass ban on military recruiting By Jennifer Squires Ashland Daily Tidings Military recruiters will no longer be welcome in the Stevenson Union at Southern Oregon University. The student senate passed a resolution banning military recruiters and recruiting materials from the student union on Tuesday night because the military violates the anti-discrimination policies of the school by discriminating against homosexuals who want to enlist and barring women from certain jobs within the armed forces. However, the nine-member student senate briefly debated holding off on the action until the fall because of recent threats targeting homosexual students on campus. “In light of some ‘hate crimes’ that have happened recently,” non-traditional senator and resolution sponsor Steve Ryan said, a student he talked to “felt this bill may aggravate the ‘hate crimes’ that have already happened.” Fliers targeting the homosexual community and a pair of students have been found in the building, the Greensprings residence hall and on a student’s vehicle in a campus parking lot. The fliers focused on the student government elections, according to Eric Rodriguez, the SOU interim director of security, and were first discovered on May 9. The most recent incident occurred Tuesday. “They were more, I guess you could say, gay-baiting signs instead of any threats of any kind,” Rodriguez said, referring to the first two incidents. The third flier, found on May 19, “was different in tone than the rest of them. It was much more hateful,” Rodriguez said. “If this was my daughter or sister or spouse, yeah, I’d be concerned.” Those concerns almost translated into a postponement of the resolution to prohibit military recruiting in the SU because of concerns the resolution may antagonize the situation. “They’re being kicked off based on discrimination and they don’t want the kind of publicity for the queer community,” said student Keith Quick. A no-go SOU joins Harvard Law School, the University of California-Berkley, the City College of New York and others schools that have barred recruiters from their campuses. The U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals in 2004 reversed the Soloman Act, which suspends federal funding to colleges and universities that prohibit military recruiting on campus if military practices violate the anti-discrimination policies of the school. The university receives less than $5 million of its $35 million annual budget from the federal government, according to SOU Vice President of Administration and Finance James Maine. The resolution to “get the U.S. out of the SU” states recruiting practices in the Stevenson Union would be barred from the building because “all branches of the U.S. armed forces discriminate on the basis of gender identity and preference ...” Currently, military recruiters visit campus once a month, where they pay a fee to rent table space in the SU. “The military would be free to go recruit in the library, should they make that deal with Churchill,” Ryan said, referring to the university administration offices in Churchill Hall. Resolutions passed by the student senate are considered recommendations to university administration; however, Vice President for Student Affairs Diane Brimmer attended Tuesday’s meeting and said afterward she sees no problem with the decision. The ban takes effect June 13. Staff writer Jennifer Squires can be reached at 482-3456 x 3019 or [email protected]. DailyTidings.com Home Page Archives | Revels | Classifieds | Real Estate Guide | Weather | Subscribe | Contact Us Copyright 2005 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers All Rights Reserved Deep Muscle Stimulator Ceramic Piggy Banks FREE Entertainment Guide Women's & Men's Slippers Accelerate Weightloss Products Backpacks Generic Viagra Vegas Travel Guide Search Engine Optimization Sportsbook Absinthe Supply Student Loans Hotel & Airline Reservations African Safari Hammocks Helzberg Diamonds Online Casinos Community Bonus Casino King of Spirits ink cartridges Mortgage Calculator Security Systems Mailing Lists Click Here Advertisement .:Advertisements:. Site Search: RESOURCES - Mail Tribune News - ODOT Road Cams