The Student Government Association Senate passed a resolution Wednesday requesting the flag of the former Republic of Vietnam be hung in the University’s World Affairs Lounge.
Health senior Linh Vo attended the meeting in support of the resolution and said the flag represents Vietnamese-Americans in Houston.
"Today, I am here as a student and I am representing all the Vietnamese-Americans here in Houston," Vo said.
He said the former Republic of Vietnam flag is important to Vietnamese-Americans because they came to the United States as refugees during the Vietnam War. The Vietnam flag hanging in the World Affairs Lounge represents Communist Vietnam instead of South Vietnam, he said.
"(The flag) represents millions and millions of people who left Vietnam on April 30, 1975 when we lost the war," Vo said.
Vo said he didn’t want the University to take down the current Vietnam flag from the World Affairs Lounge, only that he wanted representation for the Vietnamese refugees.
Author of the resolution and At-Large graduate Sen. Van Hua said that the former Republic of Vietnam flag can be seen throughout Houston. He said Houston has officially recognized the flag as a Vietnamese-American community symbol since June 18, 2003.
"There has been no real opposition whatsoever," Hua said in regards to the resolution.
The resolution passed with At-Large undergraduate Sen. Alejandro Capetillo voting against it.
Capetillo said he was not opposed to the Vietnamese-American community having the flag as a symbol to represent itself, but was afraid recommending the former Republic of Vietnam flag to hang in the World Affairs Lounge would open the floor for other communities to ask for their flag to hang in the lounge.
"The World Affairs Lounge, as I understand it, represents the flags of current sovereign nations. I’m just worried that hanging a flag that essentially represents a community will open a floodgate," Capetillo said.
SGA President David Rosen openly called for University President Renu Khator to have a meeting with Students Against Sweatshops and SGA representatives.
"This group has been trying since Dr. Khator was chosen by our (UH System) Board of Regents a number of months ago to meet with Dr. Khator and, by my understanding, they haven’t met with her yet," Rosen said.
Rosen also announced that SGA Senate efforts to encourage more people to run for office have been successful with 75 people filing for office with more contests since 2004.
"Our marketing efforts this year are a success," Rosen said.
In the first of two Tuition and Fees Forums, Rosen said that parts of three of the five requests in the five-point plan to reduce tuition and fees will be forwarded to the board. The plan includes most of the high demand undergraduate courses, which will be offered to students as a "two for one" deal during the fourth summer mini-semester. The family contract plan, which is offered to students that have a family income of $25,000 or less, will increase to $30,000 for next fall, making more students eligible for financial aid need based scholarships and loans. There will also be a cap on future increases at six percent for the next two years.
"This is probably the single biggest victory of any student government at a public school in the state of Texas in this past decade," Rosen said.
SGA Senators Tim O’Brien, Vanessa Hall, Shameria Davis, Jason Cisneroz and Mujan Noroozian did not attend the meeting.
