I’m concerned with what happened in the American Pluralism committee meeting a while ago. Victor Hernandez, the president of the Latino Student Union, and Desera Favors, the president of STAR, were denied the right to vote in a subject that concerns all students.

The American Pluralism committee is trying to add or replace Psychology of Race and Gender with American Pluralism.

Hernandez and Favor weren’t even invited to the committee meeting, and then they were denied the right to vote. I think this needs to be known by all students, specially the Hispanic students on campus. I will like the African-American students to support Favors as we are supporting Hernandez. If today this happens to them, tomorrow it could happen to any of us.

Because the purpose of this committee is to bring American Pluralism to this university, we would expect the university the pluralistic ideas of “equal coexistence” and “equal opportunity for all people.” The committee demonstrates total hypocrisy instead by devaluing the student voice and defending it by discriminating against students, criticizing them for lack of experience and wisdom. We can argue that we make up a large percentage of the American Pluralism community being Hispanic and that we feel our voices should be taken seriously. I think I am speaking for all Hispanic students when I say that we demand the right to vote and we hope that all students will support our demands.

Melisa Roman is a sophomore education and Spanish major, a member of the Latino Student Union, the International Student Union and an associate member of STAR.