Law students say no thanks to GPSA

Students at the UNM School of Law voted last week to secede from GPSA.
Three-fourths of those who voted agreed with the statement, “I vote to withdraw the law school’s affiliation with GPSA.” The number of voters was not readily available this weekend.

Genevieve Graham, who helped organize the secession vote, said she had expected the law students to vote in favor of seceding.
“I am happy that three-fourths of the law students voted to secede, because I think that will be enough to show the regents that we want to secede,” she said.

The vote was cast through e-mail ballot from Wednesday until Friday. The ballot included three other items, which asked students if the Student Bar Association should represent law student interests to the University, whether the law students should pull all funding from GPSA and whether the current law student fees should be redirected to the Student Bar Association.
All items on the ballot had more than 70 percent approval.

The Board of Regents will still have to approve the motions before the school can create its own governmental body, Graham said. She said the law school still needs to create a document spelling out how the law students’ government would function before the motion goes before the regents this summer.

“The next regents’ meeting is in the summer, and before that we would put together a proposal that hopefully everyone would read, and maybe we would create a petition, too,” she said.

GPSA President Lissa Knudsen said the loss of law students would deprive the GPSA of their expertise.
“We’re really going to miss the law students,” she said. “They’re trained to interpret the GPSA constitution, and I think they were effective at that. It’s not just that GPSA benefitted from that … I think it provided valuable experience for the law students, too.”
Knudsen said seceding from GPSA isn’t in the law students’ best interest.

“I think it’s somewhat shortsighted. There might be a time in the future when law students would benefit from speaking with a unified voice with GPSA,” she said.
Knudsen said the secession of the law school could lead other groups to follow their example.
“This could potentially result in other departments wanting to secede from both student governments,” she said. “That could cause problems.”
Graham said she supported the secession because GPSA’s interests don’t align with the law students’ interests.
“Secession has been talked about because the interests are too attenuated and not aligned, especially in the last couple of years, when GPSA has taken up some strange battles,” she said.

Graham said an example of the separation of interests is GPSA’s decision to speak out against UNM’s Athletics Department last semester.
“I think GPSA sort of went on a crusade to kind of denounce the actions of the Athletics Department. I don’t think that’s relevant to the interests of the law school,” she said. “I think they should be more focused on things like keeping tuition down.”
Knudsen said she expects the regents to approve the law school’s decision.

“GPSA has been courageous enough to stand up to the regents,” she said. “I think the regents will take this opportunity to send a message to GPSA.”

Knudsen said some non-law school graduate students were also in favor of the law school forming its own student government.
“Many grad students have the perception that law students feel separate and superior to the other grad students,” she said. “I have had many grad students come up to me and just say, ‘Let ‘em go.’”