Athletic clubs no longer violating Union rules, SGCC introduces a probation process

Three months ago, on October 7th, the Student Senate unanimously passed the Nondiscrimination and Free Spaces Act, which was the Union’s first official antidiscrimination policy, which prevented the creation of “exclusionary spaces” based on protected traits. With the passing of the NFSA, single-gender athletic clubs like Club Softball and Women’s Club Basketball, both women-only teams, were in violation of Union rules.

Sports teams are required to follow the rules of their leagues or event hosts if they wish to play against other teams, where many events are separated by gender. It would be impossible for many of these teams to keep playing if they were required to allow anyone who wished to join their teams. In order to allow athletic clubs to discriminate based on gender, they passed an amendment to the Act allowing them to do so as long as an outside organization required it.

This amendment also allowed athletic clubs to discriminate on the basis of skill at tryouts. Many athletic clubs are competitive and players must have a certain skill level to be a helpful member of the team, so skill-based discrimination is often necessary to do well. As long as tryouts are open to all, picking members based on skill is now allowed. The NFSA Amendment passed 19-0-2.

The Senate also approved a change to the E-Board Bylaws, removing club classifications and requirements. The classifications and requirements section was a copy of the same section in the Rensselaer Union Guidelines and Policies, and made updating them difficult as both the RUGP and and the E-Board Bylaws would need to go through the process of being updated.

This eased the way for a change in the club renewal process. E-Board will reach out to clubs in September, and clubs must reply by the end of October, proving that they have enough officers to operate. The Union will also require only Union-funded clubs to attend the Activities Fair. The status of clubs has also been redefined. A club’s state is its activeness: active, probation, or inactive, while a club’s class is funded, recognised, or partnered.

The dormant state was renamed to probation, and established a probationary process. Before a club is placed on probation, there will be a review period of less than three months during which it will be reviewed. Failure to respond to E-Board or a lack of members could put a club on probation. When a club is put on probation, all club members will be notified, and union accounts will be frozen. The club must meet with their SARP and E-Board representative to determine the steps to get out of probation. If they do not meet these requirements, the club will be made inactive. This process can always be appealed to J-Board.

There was additionally added a process for club members to vote to make their club inactive, creating a process of “club suicide.” For example, in cases where the majority of a club's members have graduated, there may not be enough members to run the club; should the club wish to dissolve, this will allow them to become inactive more easily.

Senate also discussed the approval of changes to the Undergraduate Council Bylaws, which included an attendance policy, added a way to dissolve committees, and added a way to impeach a voting member. Unfortunately, UC passed the bylaws with the placeholder “[insert name, prev Arch]” in the document, which Senate is unable to edit. As a result, the majority of the Senate decided to table the matter indefinitely.

This Senate meeting occurred on January 13, 2026. The Senate meets every Tuesday at 6 pm in the Shelnutt Gallery.