Student Union (SU) Senate passed a resolution advocating for dining workers’ rights and discussed a potential roundtable among Jewish and Muslim student organizations to determine considered harmful speech, April 2.

Sophomore and senator Ella Scott, who co-sponsored the dining workers resolution, said that it acts as an outline of demands that can be used by students who want to demand better treatment of the dining staff. The resolution also stated that SU Senate wants to host a stand-in with students in solidarity with Dining Service employees. 

“To plan a protest, you should really have demands,” said Scott. “That’s also why [the resolution] is fairly long; there is a lot to address.”

While writing the resolution, Scott talked to United Food and Commercial Workers Local 655, the union that represents Washington University dining workers, along with dining staff, but University administrators have yet to meet with Scott. 

The resolution asks WashU’s dining service provider Sodexo to disclose changes in shifts and wages to the union, to provide dining workers with a designated break room, to provide dining staff with adequate training for their roles, and to treat the dining workers with dignity and respect.

The initial version of the resolution presented at the meeting stated that Greek Life organizations Alpha Phi and Kappa Sigma were responsible for the recent incident in Bear’s Den, which is still under investigation.

Junior senator Braeden Rose expressed concern that the resolution potentially made libelous statements against Greek Life groups since the investigation is ongoing. 

“Can we really know that’s true to such an extent that we want to put our name on it?” said Rose. “I think we should kind of consider that as well.”

Sarah Edmonson, Associate Director of Student Involvement and SU Advisor, and multiple senators, including Rose, asked the Senate body to have the term “alleged” added to the statement that referenced Alpha Phi and Kappa Sigma in the resolution.

Speaker Sonal Churiwal said that using the word “alleged” regarding the harassment incident is not necessary, referencing a statement made by the Association of Black Students about the incident.

“There’s no use of “alleged” [in the statement]. As a Senate body who’s representing students and student groups, we should be mirroring the language they’re using,” said Churiwal. “If that’s the statement they’re putting out, we have very good reason to believe that this did happen.”

Senate voted in favor of having “allegedly” added to the aforementioned statement in the resolution, and proceeded to pass the resolution 14 to zero, with one abstention.

Next, senators heard an update from senators and sophomores Ashton Lee and Sahil Soni about their initiative to organize a roundtable event between Jewish and Muslim student groups, with the intention of putting out a joint statement with the organizations to condemn violence and hate speech on campus, as decided in the roundtable. The joint statement will be voted on within SU at a later date. The date of the roundtable will be announced once leaders in Jewish and Muslim student organizations respond to the invitation. 

According to Lee, the student groups who received invitations are Asian Multicultural Council, Chabad, Hillel, Jewish Students Association, Jewish Students for Palestine, and Muslim Students Association, and they plan to have the discussion facilitated by the Center for Diversity and Inclusion and the Office for Religious, Spiritual, and Ethical Life (ORSEL). 

Soni said this roundtable will specifically focus on issues of antisemitism, Zionism, and Islamophobia at the University. 

“One thing that I think we need to make very clear are definitions, definitions of what Zionism is, what antisemitism is, what Islamophobia is, [and] what to call the conflict in the Middle East,” said Soni. “There needs to be a unanimous agreement among us and among the student leaders in this body.”

Soni hopes the statement produced by the roundtable will encompass everyone’s feelings on this matter.

“Some people feel that they’ve been hurt, attacked, have had hate crimes against them, and their feelings have been invalidated because of what’s been happening in the conflict,” said Soni. “We have to be able to accept and acknowledge everyone’s feelings and find a way to include it in this statement.”

Churiwal said that it could be difficult for individuals at the roundtable to separate hate towards Muslims and Jews from the conflict in the Middle East.

“I also understand the impetus behind [saying] we’re only going to discuss hate speech and not talk about actual conflicts or actual violence happening abroad,” said Churiwal. “I just think that’s an unrealistic goal because it is very connected.”

Senators brought up that it will be difficult to balance Muslim and Jewish voices so all parties feel well-represented at the roundtable.

Churiwal also noted that Resist WashU did not get an invitation to the roundtable.

“Resist is the main group that has positioned themselves as pro-Palestine, and they are omitted from this discussion, for valid reasons,” said Churiwal. “I think that the main groups that have positioned themselves as pro-Israel are all represented in this meeting.”

Senate then moved to discuss the Improve Survey, which was last conducted in 2022 by SU to get input from the student body about what issues Senate should work on next year. 

The body briefly discussed shortening the survey this year from its initial 20 questions to seven or eight questions and using other avenues to get student input such as tabling on campus and putting up posters where community members can write their thoughts.

Senate concluded the meeting with a presentation by first-year Mahid Abdulkarim, a senator and an executive board member on MSA, about an upcoming fundraiser on April 25 to raise money and awareness for the humanitarian crisis in Sudan.

When discussing the dining resolution, Rose said this Senate has passed more resolutions than any Senate in the last several semesters, which he said could potentially dilute Senate’s voice.

“I think there’s an inverse relationship between how often we speak and the perceived importance of what we say,” said Rose. “There’s something to be said that our voice loses its influence over people because it’s just so commonplace to hear a statement from us.”

In response, senator and sophomore Natalia León Díaz said she is frustrated by the inconsistent expectations of what Senate should be.

“This body can be whatever we want it to be. […] I hear conflicting arguments that Senate doesn’t do anything, but then passing resolutions is doing too much. Then what is it? What are we looking for?”