By Sarah Hayward
A proposal for a new student group will face RyeSAC’s board of directors after being rejected by the student group committee.
The council rejected the Che Guevara Fan Club last month because they felt the group intended to cover issues already mandated by other groups on campus.
Che Guevara was a Communist, Latin American guerrilla leader and revolutionary theorist. In his honour, the Club’s goal is to promote diversity and inclusion within Ryerson.
Carlos Flores, vice president internal for the club and the man who lost the RyeSAC presidency last year to Dave MacLean, said that “similarity or overlap cannot be enough to deny us the right to exist on campus.”
Cristina Ribeiro, RyeSAC’s vice president student life and events, said the group’s goals were not outlined clearly to the student group committee, which couldn’t see a clear distinction from other groups.
“The Che group never answered my questions in being specific as to how they don’t overlap,” she said. “The group would not give the student group committee all of the details of what they want to work on, so since they were only general with the committee on these issues, we could only conclude that their work would overlap.”
However, a couple of groups have stated that it is not the case. The club received letters of support from the Ryerson Urbanists and the RyeSAC Initiative for Sustainability and the Environment. Both groups say the Che club’s goals do not duplicate their own.
“Issues of poverty, racism and human rights…go beyond municipal boundaries,” wrote Sean Marshall of the Ryerson Urbanists.
Flores said the club may be seen as a threat, since the group will bring together currently diverse and segregated groups.
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