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Another dispute is raging at the University of St. Gallen over gender-sensitive language. A student’s comment has been censored.
View of the HSG learning room: Student representatives from the University of St. Gallen have difficulty addressing gender issues.
“We are the student body” – that’s the title of a comment that should have appeared in the University of St. Gallen’s “Prisma” student magazine early in the fall semester.
Max, an HSG student who doesn’t want to be called by his real name, wonders in the text where the widespread rejection of same-sex language comes from.
“Inconsistencies of fact”
“We at HSG in particular, who like to call ourselves the ‘elite’, should support this change as enlightened citizens and be at the forefront,” he writes, criticizing the former HSG student body board of directors. In March, the latter spoke out clearly against changing the name of the student body to the HSG student body.
The comment was poorly received by his editorial colleagues: At the final conference of the editorial team of “Prisma”, the opinion piece was censored – “for factual inconsistencies.”
180,000 francs for a gender-sensitive designation
This incident was preceded by a debate in the HSG student parliament. The question was whether the student parliament should take the position to change the name of the student body to the student body in the internal consultation on the University Law with regard to the education department of the canton of St. Gallen.
The then president, Florian Wussmann, 23, had rejected the proposal for “procedural and material reasons.” Changing the student body’s name based on gender would jeopardize the “strong brand on campus” and the “parallel use of two brands is irresponsible.” Also, according to Wussmann, changing the name is too expensive:
“The calculations made by the board of directors show costs of almost 180,000 francs and an effort of 7,000 hours of work.”
7000 hours of work correspond to 3.2 full-time positions for a whole year. According to Wussmann, this workforce would be required to rename the HSG student body (SHSG) to the HSG student body (SHSG) based on gender.
Threatened with legal action
That made no sense to the editor of “Prisma.” Several times he asked how this calculation came about, “for reasons of transparency”, as he himself puts it.
At first he received no responses, then evasions, and finally Florian Wussmann threatened legal action. If you continue to face such false statements or if it is presented publicly in a biased manner, you are forced to call the General Secretariat of the HSG and the Secretary of State of the Canton of St. Gallen for legal support.
“Politically motivated actionism”
In addition, he said it would be “a politically motivated actionism, which torpedoes extremely sensitive businesses on which depends the future of the students of the University of St. Gallen.
“Sensitive business”: Florian Wussmann refers to the upcoming revision of the University Law, which, as a result of the spending issue that shook the HSG about two years ago, is aimed at ensuring greater transparency.
The next generation at HSG doesn’t want to create this kind of transparency. Upon request, Florian Wussmann writes about costing:
“These are internal documents for which there was no obligation to deliver. The student parliament, which oversees the work of the student body board, was able to inspect it at its fourth ordinary session on February 25, 2020. »
This newspaper has the minutes of the student parliament of March 6. Under this protocol, the board had failed to deliver on the estimates promised on February 25. “It was not presented at the time and not for this session either,” said a member of parliament.
A five-digit amount, or just CHF 1,000?
The dispute over the name change of the student body is not new. On December 11, 2014, the HSG student body initiative made headlines across the country. Even then, the board discussed the costs that a gender-neutral name would incur. Thousands of francs to change the name? HSG-Zoff for genre-brothel, “titled the” Blick. ”
In an official Facebook post from the student body at the time, it was claimed that adjusting official documents, promotional items and other media would cost a four to five digit amount. The costs were then corrected to a maximum five-digit number before the ticket was completely removed from the Facebook post.
The then president of the student body had to crawl up to “Blick” and admit that the high cost estimate was a mistake.
The board only has an additional expense of 1000 francs for new signage. To save costs, the existing stationery is used and then replaced with a new one.
Costs calculated “scientifically”
Six years have passed since then. Tomorrow’s business elite have said they have learned the lessons from the incident. Former Chairman Wussmann wrote that the 2014 internal costing and calculations for individual board departments were based on.
“The 2014 incidents were scientifically processed, the resulting document is now standard work in the preparation of the position of board members.”
Wussmann leaves open how an amount of 180,000 francs could come up despite this “scientific preparation.” In any case, a name change would require a lot of staff:
“The organization name change could not have been completed if all other tasks had been thoroughly carried out at the same time, so additional labor would have had to be employed,” writes Wussmann.
Editor of «Prisma»: «We need a ballot»
The student body is still struggling with the issue of gender. Bitter for those in favor of gender-sensitive language: HSG’s student body is now lagging behind current development. The alumni of the University of Bern, for example, renamed themselves in 2018.
The editor of “Prisma”, Max, is disappointed: “With these trivial arguments it seems to me that equality is completely irrelevant to the former board member,” he says. This attitude could no longer be allowed in 2020 and with around 35 percent of women in the HSG.
“Now it is even more important that the students take the reins. We need a ballot. “
For one thing, probably the first in HSG history, 100 signatures would be required. Only then will the debate on a gender-equitable designation of the HSG student body continue. A debate that was nipped in the bud with the censorship of a comment from “Prisma”.
