During the first meeting of the school year, the Associated Students Legislative Council discussed a Daily Nexus opinion piece and passed a resolution condemning hate crimes.

The council voiced concerns over an opinion piece published in the Nexus on Monday (“Isla Vista Has Lost Its Spunk,” Daily Nexus, Sept. 28) and considered submitting a statement on behalf of A.S. expressing their condemnation of the language in the column.

Off-Campus Representative Darshan Grover said the student who submitted the piece should not be criticized, but that the Nexus should be held responsible for printing it in the first place.

“It is somewhat the duty of the Nexus to reduce the amount of things printed that are actually offensive,” Grover said. “[This] crosses the line between being controversial and thought-provoking and being offensive. The fact that it’s published with student money is disturbing. There are terms in [the submission] that the Nexus should know better than to publish.”

Other members said they were proud of the five people who wrote letters to the editor.

Representative-at-Large Husayn Hasan said A.S.’s main goal should be to try to educate people in regards to the issue.

“What we should do, if anything, is keep educating the public,” Hasan said. “It’s the only way we can break this kind of cultural ignorance.”

During the four-hour meeting, the council also passed a resolution condemning hate crimes. Edgar Vargas, the co-chair for the A.S. Queer Commission, said the bill was drafted so council members could express their solidarity with the Queer community.

“There needs to be an increase in awareness, increase in security and increase in safety for the Queer community,” Vargas, a second-year psychology major said. “Support should be shown due to the community’s lack of security and lack of feeling of community.”

Meanwhile, some on-campus representatives voiced concerns about the current Legislative Council meeting time. Internal Vice President Kevin Higuchi said that meetings should perhaps start at a different time to prevent the loss of dining commons meal plans.

“The dining commons are only open [for dinner] from 5-8 p.m.,” Higuchi said. “A lot of times, members will not be able to utilize their meals. In the past, meetings have started as late as 6:30 [p.m.]. This will allow on-campus reps to get food to eat.”

However, Grover said he didn’t think it was fair to change the meeting time for the convenience of a handful of people.

“I would say as an off-campus rep, I’m sure most people on this board would excuse the on-campus reps to take a half hour recess to go and eat at the dining commons,” Grover said. “People have scheduled their classes around these meetings, so it’s hasty to change the schedules of 20 odd people for meals’ sake.”