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EDITORIAL: Thoughts on the Senate president

The Constitution does not guarantee freedom of the press because the founding fathers were anxious for a bit of salacious gossip. The press exists to protect the people we serve by requiring transparency and accountability in our government.

Unfortunately, some of UNLV’s undergraduate student representatives either do not understand the importance of free press or think they are above it.

We place great value on establishing confidence among members of student government, but with the institution of its newest Senate president Victor Barragan, we have witnessed a troubling inverse relationship between questionable activity in CSUN and the willingness of members to speak out.

Despite Barragan’s outspoken criticism of his predecessor both before winning the spring election and after accepting the position of Senate president, he has led the body of representatives down a dangerous path in his first few months of office, marking a steep decline from the former, albeit imperfect, status quo.

Senate meetings under Barragan’s leadership are too often fraught with confusion and petty arguments over the counting of votes – Barragan’s responsibility. Meanwhile, minutes required by Nevada Open Meeting Law have gone missing under his watch.

The brash, impetuous and even sarcastic manner with which Barragan seems to terrorize the members of his assembly during meetings is unprofessional and unnecessary. Furthermore, it directly handicaps a healthy relationship between senators and the press.

In our page one story “CSUN divided,” we have chosen to protect the identity of a source affiliated with CSUN because we deemed Barragan’s trend of divisiveness and backbiting to be a threat to the safety of the source’s position in student government.

No other source that we know to have a direct knowledge of the issues threatening CSUN unity would agree to speak with us about the unanswered questions regarding Barragan’s performance, for fear of backlash.
This is not a healthy relationship, nor one that can serve students well.

Not only has Barragan actively defeated many Senators’ good relationships with the press by effectively blackmailing them to prevent their telling The Rebel Yell details of CSUN operations, he has mindlessly attempted to violate the legal relationship between government and the media.

When student body president Adam Cronis submitted a letter to the editor of The Rebel Yell, prefaced with a clear explanation that his statements were made in his capacity as a student, not as a member of student government, Barragan found out and showed up in our office to tell us not to run the letter.

We explained that by law no government, student or otherwise, may exercise censorship over the content of a newspaper and that editorial decisions rest solely with our editor-in-chief. Still, after we printed the letter in the July 13 issue of The Rebel Yell, Barragan alleged that we had betrayed his “instruction” and shown favoritism toward Cronis.

We had not. We remained completely impartial and still do. We did not follow Barragan’s advice because if we had, we would be guilty of succumbing to illegal censorship.

He has even frequently pressured Yell reporters to portray him flatteringly and harasses management with concerns over whether editors have “correct” information.

Barragan’s irrational notion that his opinion should hold any sway with the student press rose to almost comical proportions when on Aug. 26, he asked a reporter if he could borrow their recording of a Senate meeting, saying he had lost the minutes.

Whether he sees himself as having some kind of administrative authority over this newspaper and thought we were obliged to help him out if he violated Open Meeting Law, or whether he thinks he is somehow above our ethical obligation to objectivity, we can’t tell.

But one thing we do know is that the CSUN Senate is being run by a misinformed egoist who is making a mockery of student government and trying to run roughshod over the institution of free press.
We won’t stand for it, and we hope the Senate won’t either.

CSUN takes action on director positions

CSUN executives have been working around the clock to fill empty positions before the fall. Six students were appointed to new positions during the June 15 Senate meeting. Read more