Editor, Daily Nexus,

In a recent decision, the Associated Students Legislative Council determined it appropriate to fund the Black Pioneers Renaissance Organization’s annual Women of Color Appreciation ceremony a cruise in the Santa Barbara harbor open to a select few who belong to the hosting organization (“Legislative Council Votes Down Support of Strikers,” Daily Nexus, May 10). The fundamental problem with this action, as mentioned by Finance Board Chair Nick Szamet is that the rules that govern A.S. state that it may sponsor an event solely on the condition that “attendance is open to all UCSB students.” The funding of this event hints at a larger problem: a legislative council so convinced of its own righteousness that it is willing to abandon all of its own governing principles to take up the burden of “social justice.”

Leg Council Off-Campus Representative Jeronimo Saldana, the gentleman who authored the bill to restrict the Nexus’ assets based on a violation of, essentially, the rules, now seems to think that the rules are no longer necessary. “Fuck the rules,” he declares, suggesting that they “…pass it and deal with the rules later.” Of course, we all know Saldana is doing his duty to the students who elected him. It’s those pragmatic fools like Szamet who are doing a grave injustice by insisting that the students’ money be spent on events that the student body is actually allowed to attend without consideration to race, religion, gender or sexual preference.

What frightens me most, however, is not that Saldana would seek to do away with those rules that restrict his duty to save the world, it’s that the students’ elected representatives also seemed so eager to go along with it. This year has been an interesting one, from the Nexus fund restriction, to the L’État, c’est moi” logic applied to the Transportation & Parking Services issue, to this frightening development. It seems that our legislative council has lost touch with the student body. Let’s hope that next year, when the number of seats for those who would sacrifice student goals in the name of “social justice” is sharply reduced, that we may again count on A.S. Legislative Council.