Washington Week: Student Voices (O)

Editorial: U. Minnesota must give students time to vote
By Editorial Board
Minnesota Daily, U. Minnesota
October 19, 2008

Some University of Minnesota professors have enough gall to believe his or her class is more important than voting — such as Kati Mohammad-Zadeh, who is ironically a political science lecturer. While Mohammad-Zadeh told The Minnesota Daily in a Friday report that she canceled a night class Nov. 4, she scheduled a test that day for another class.

“If I gotta be there, you gotta be there,” she told The Daily.

According to University policy, students do not have to be excused from class on Election Day to go and cast their votes. We urge professors — most of whom by law can be excused from work — to excuse students from class in order to vote on Nov. 4. We also urge students to have an honest discussion with their professors if a certain class is the only viable window they have open to vote.

University spokesman Dan Wolter told The Daily that he “found it hard to believe that with polling places open for 13 hours on Election Day, students would be unable to find some time during the day to vote.” Students’ schedules are nevertheless packed with classes, jobs and activities. Missing work for many students means missing a necessary source of income. And with projected record voting numbers in Minnesota, lines at the polls might be egregiously long.

The right to vote is the very premise upon which our country stands. If education truly is the goal of the University, educators must do all they can to ensure students have the opportunity to participate in an important civics lesson that no class — even political science — could ever teach. To quote University President Bob Bruininks in an e-mail urging students to register: “Our country’s tradition of free and fair elections is unparalleled in history and must not be taken for granted.” What professor believes their class more valuable than that tradition?

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