After six hours of negotiations, the ASUNM Senate passed a resolution stating the groups support of Sex Week.
ASUNM Sen. James Walker, co-author of Resolution 5F, said he wrote the resolution because he felt there was a need for sexual education on campus.
“We as a public institution have a duty to educate our students even more and pick up the slack that was left off,” Walker said. “I think this was a great way to do it, but what the resolution ultimately says ‘we need this education. UNM, continue to do this.”
The resolution, which passed by a 15-4 margin, did not mention plans for future sex weeks, he said. However, Walker sees that there is a concern about the titles, which some considered to be racy.
ASUNM does not have the authority to dictate what events should be named, but future Sex Weeks will not be repeated in the same way it was this year, he said.
According to Resolution 5F, “be it further resolved, that student input be heard and considered in the planning and implementation of future Sex Weeks.”
ASUNM Sen. Mathew Sanchez opposed the resolution because it was not specific in the call to action for student’s voices about Sex Week. Sanchez supports sexual education on UNM’s campus, but for Sex Week he thinks it could have had better execution and reflected more of the student population, he said.
“So now we are just leaving it up to the students to come and give their input whereas we could have put something in the resolution stating that ASUNM go out and get students’ input for the next Sex Week,” Sanchez said.
Sade Patterson, vice president for Students for Life, said she did not support the past Sex Week because the event did not cover sexual assault awareness. Sex Week’s racy titles were also a concern, she said. However, she supports the idea of sex education on campus.
“We would like the approach to be different than it was this year because we feel it should have supported more how to prevent sexual assault and how to help someone who has been victimized by sexual assault,” Patterson said.
President Pro Tempore Grace Liu, a co-author of the resolution, said although there was opposition, the senate was still able to construct a resolution that pleased a majority of the group.
The senate added a clause that encouraged students to voice their opinions about Sex Week, as well as provide more clarity about what is being taught, she said.
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“We originally had a clause that asked the UNM administration to revoke their apology,” Liu said. “That eventually evolved into a clause that said ‘we want to see more proactive, constructive criticism on what can we do better moving forward,’ like that kind of information from the administration.”
UNM’s inaugural Sex Week made national news earlier this month because of the titles at which point UNM issued an apology, she said.
“The authors and I thought that (apology) was completely inappropriate. As a school administration they should be supporting their students in their right to put on events that they think are important,” Liu said.
For UNM to go out and publicly apologize for an event that took a lot of time and dedication from the students and Women’s Resource Center is unacceptable to ASUNM, she said.
“That’s what we want more than anything, we want Cheo (Torres, vice president of student affairs) to expand on his previous statements because they can be taken differently ... We just want more clarification, definitely and more support from him going forward,” Liu said.
According to Resolution 5F, “be it further resolved, in reference to a statement made by Torres regarding Sex Week, we urge the UNM administration to put forth a statement offering constructive criticism and specific calls for action in order to facilitate a more inclusive sex education event.”
Torres said he would be willing to add clarification to the apology and that he agrees with the resolution in that it does attempt to strengthen what ASUNM is trying to do, which is promote sexual education within the university setting.
Torres said he looks forward to working with ASUNM in future sex education programs.
“That’s what we are here for, to work with students and to support students,” Torres said.
Lauren Marvin is the culture editor for the Daily Lobo, and Moriah Carty is the assistant culture editor. They can be reached at culture@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @Daily Lobo.
