Non-sabbaticals will be more varied than ever before because of changes to the Cardiff Students’ Union constitution.
Certain non-sabbs used to have to be ‘self-defining’ when representing their minority groups. It means that to be elected Women’s Officer, Cardiff students would have needed to be female.
However, changes from last year’s AGM mean that this year, for the first time, students that don’t self define are able to stand for certain non-sabbatical positions.
In a nutshell, it means that a man could stand for Women’s Officer or someone that’s straight could stand for Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual and Transgender (LGBT) Officer.
The issue provoked harsh debate between those for and against it at the AGM.
Jo Roberts, Women’s Officer for NUS Wales, argued against the change to the constitution which passed by a slim margin: “Firstly and perhaps foundationally, only someone who self-defines into these groups can understand their needs. For example, how can someone who is not disabled understand the needs of someone who is? In order to understand what should be dealt with you MUST experience it yourself, otherwise how can you make decisions about campaigns when you have not experienced what you are campaigning upon?”
However, some Cardiff students did argue for the change. They argued that self-definition was against the equal opportunities policy that the constitution is grounded in and that if no self defining students were willing to take the position then why couldn’t one that didn’t be elected instead.
Cardiff is one of the only Students’ Unions to introduce such a policy and the change is one that NUS UK and NUS Wales oppose very strongly.
NUS Wales has stated that non-self defining officers will not be allowed to attend their liberation conferences to discuss NUS policy and NUS UK has said the same about their national conferences.
It’s not a hurdle that CUSU has had to cross yet but the upcoming by-elections may throw a spanner in relations with the NUS.
