By Brianna Vaccari and Ricardo Cano

Two law advocacy groups say Associated Students, Inc. may have violated legal open meeting requirements at the March 5 meeting, an allegation ASI President Moses Menchaca denied.

“There may have been better ways that the student government could have handled the situation that would not have run afoul of the [Gloria Romero Open Meetings Act of 2000]” said Leila Knox, an associate of Bryan Cave, LLP, a general counsel for the California First Amendment Coalition.

Protesting students, faculty and alumni challenged Fresno State’s motto “Discovery. Diversity. Distinction.” at ASI’s public meeting held March 5, expressing concerns over discrimination against underrepresented minorities after several student organizations were denied funding.

Due to the growing unrest of the audience, Justin Whisten, ASI executive vice president, announced the meeting room was to be cleared, and ASI would reconvene in 10 minutes.

During this intermission, senators deliberated in a separate room closed to the public. Menchaca said in an interview Tuesday that ASI went into the room and “took a deep breath, listened and reflected on everything.”

The Gloria Romero Open Meetings Act, specifically designed for student governments in the California State University system, states that “a legislative body of a student body organization shall conduct its business in public meetings.”

The act also defines a meeting as “…any congregation of a majority of the membership of a legislative body at the same time and place to hear, discuss, or deliberate upon any item that is within the subject matter jurisdiction of the legislative body to which it pertains.”

There are conflicting opinions as to whether or not the open meeting law was broken when a majority of ASI members went into the private room to discuss the situation, the outcome being the decision to continue the meeting as usual.

“…The student government going into what was essentially a closed meeting to decide whether or not to clear the room of members of the public may have been a violation of the Act, since they were technically holding a ‘meeting’ that the public — and the press– was not able to view,” Knox said.

Adam Goldstein, attorney advocate for the Student Press Law Center, said that the law’s definition of the word “meeting” makes ASI’s recess congregation in the private room illegal.

When Menchaca was asked whether or not ASI violated the act, he said, “Absolutely not.”

“We’ve consulted registered parliamentarians regarding this issue, and they’ve informed us that this is not an infringement on Gloria Romero at all,” he said.

Though Menchaca said ASI consulted the parliamentarians, he was unable to name them due to lack of permissions to release their names.

Menchaca said when ASI went into the other room, executive vice president Justin Whisten decided to continue the meeting as usual.

As executive vice president, Whisten serves as chair and mediator to the ASI meetings.

Menchaca said Whisten made the decision to adjourn the meeting and go into a closed session “because business was not able to be conducted with the remarks,” and “he decided it was best to adjourn it after multiple warnings.”

“…If business is not allowed to be conducted, they have the opportunity to go to recess,” he said.

“When I felt that the interruptions had become substantial enough to disrupt the conduct of business I referred to and followed procedures stated in Section 89307.1 of the Gloria Romero Act,” Whisten said, quoting the section of the act that deems it appropriate for a student government to clear the room due to interruptions to the meeting.

That section also stipulates that a meeting may only be cleared if “order cannot be restored by the removal of individuals who are willfully interrupting the meeting.”

However, Whisten said, “We did not attempt to remove any individuals as it was multiple people who were interrupting the meeting.”

Whisten said the interruptions in the meeting “made the discussion between the members of the senate unfeasible,” and that “one senator even addressed the public stating that the public’s disturbances were making it hard to follow the discussion.”

All ASI members receive training on open meeting requirements during a transition retreat. Whisten received the training, and is also trained in Robert’s Rules of Order and parliamentary procedure, which are methods of operations to run an open public meeting.

Menchaca also said ASI takes extra measures to ensure the meeting mediator understands the Gloria Romero Open Meeting Act.

Since the meeting, there has been little word from M.E.Ch.A., the most-represented organization at the March 5 meeting, Menchaca said. M.E.Ch.A. didn’t appeal the denial of an application for funding, and though the ASI’s vice president of finance, Rebecca Rosengarten, provided group leaders with her availability to meet, a meeting was never set up.

In the meantime, “we’re just kind of talking with different university individuals…making sure that our senators feel safe going through classes and continuing to do their work,” Menchaca said.

Nadia Pearl contributed to this report.