Sacramento State has violated students’ right to free speech, said senior government major Ed Ober in a letter to Associated Students Inc. and President Alexander Gonzalez.

Ober said his referendum to add a judiciary branch to ASI was blocked by Lori Varlotta, vice president of student affairs. He said Varlotta told him the language in the referendum was too “legalistic.”

Ober doesn’t believe this to be the whole story.

“I think she blocked the referendum because a judiciary branch would reallocate power from her to the students,” Ober said.

Varlotta said the referendum’s language was not clear and changes needed be made.

“I’m not censoring him,” Varlotta said. “But, my job is to make sure the referendum’s language is clear, concise and free of errors. My opinion of the idea is irrelevant to the issue.”

She said any student who wants to bring a referendum to ASI who is not on ASI’s board, like Ober, needs to be reviewed by the vice president of student affairs to check for errors and clarity.

Ober said he didn’t know about this when he was collecting signatures for his referendum. He had already gathered the needed signatures before he sent it to Varlotta for review.

He said she failed to finish reviewing the material before the deadline to place the referendum on the Spring 2009 election ballot.

Ober was confused to find Varlotta had problems with the initiative because it contained the same wording used in California State University, Long Beach’s student government judicial bylaws.

“I literally lifted the language from Long Beach,” Ober said.

He got the idea of adding a judiciary branch to ASI after being on the judiciary committee at Long Beach during the 2002-2003 academic year.

Not saying there are any current problems with ASI, but Ober said the judiciary branch at Long Beach helped to keep the student government in check.

“ASI handles a lot of student money and other things important to students,” Ober said.

Varlotta defends her stance saying the original language was confusing and students would have a hard time understanding it.

“If you look at any student policy,” Varlotta said. “We don’t use legalistic language. It just confuses students.”

She said since the material was reviewed, Ober has not requested a meeting to discuss it.

“If he brings it to me with the changed material, it would be fine,” Varlotta said.

Michael Mette can be reached at [email protected].