I call foul play!

I have no idea what the U administration is doing seeking approval for mandatory insurance from ASUU.

All the possible reasons I can think of are bad. If the administration thinks it’s a good idea, why doesn’t it do it? Why involve the Associated Students of the University of Utah?

Is it to give students the experience of being involved in the decision-making process? If so, why isn’t it requiring students to become more educated on the issue?

The only explanation that makes sense to me is for the administration to able to say, “Students want this (or are at least OK with it). We know because their student government approved it.”

If that is the reason, shame on the administration for manipulating student government and shame on ASUU for allowing itself to be used.

Every effort to gather opinions from the larger student body has resoundingly shown that students do not believe health insurance should be mandatory to attend this school.

Yes, all students should have insurance. Yes, it is irresponsible to not have it. But students have made themselves clear: No, it should not be required.

ASUU officials have asked their constituents to e-mail them, they’ve made attempts to speak to their constituents in person and The Chronicle has conducted an online poll. Every effort to get student feedback has found the large majority saying NO!

So if the administration doesn’t care what surveys, polls and e-mails reveal, why does it care what ASUU thinks?

Why ask ASUU, anyway? A few months ago its top brass asked for a huge “Operation Outbreak,” during which every member was supposed to educate his or her constituents about the health-insurance issue and get their feedback.

At the first ASUU General Assembly and Senate meetings after the Outbreak, at which they were supposed to report what they had learned from speaking with students, several officials asked, “What is this insurance thing, again?”

If ASUU doesn’t care enough to educate itself (or its constituents, as promised) about the issue, why does the administration care what it thinks?

The whole thing doesn’t make sense! Administration: Either just do it or don’t, but quit trying to get student approval for something we don’t approve of!

At the last meeting, one senator asked whether ASUU officials were supposed to vote according to what they thought or what their constituents wanted. Well, the answer to that should be influenced by why they’re being asked to vote.

If the administration wants ASUU’s approval so that it can say, “We have student approval,” then the Senate’s vote should reflect the polls and surveys that have been conducted. If student representatives are supposed to decide with the wisdom they were voted in to use, then they had better make sure that they know the facts inside and out. They had better make sure they know a lot more about the issue than what an analyst hired by administrators tells them.