Amendment One of the Bill of Rights of the US Constitution states, "Congress shall make no law...... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.

On February 3, I attended an open meeting of the Normandale Student Senate as a staff writer for the Lions Roar student newspaper. I introduced myself to the President of the Senate, Brett Johnson, and told him I was there on behalf of the Lions Roar. On the agenda was an item under new business "Elections".

According to the by-laws of the Student Senate, current senators ask questions of potential senators during a senate meeting. This is called a Question and Answer session. President Johnson asked a member of the senate to volunteer as a Sergeant at Arms and asked the senate candidates to leave the room.

Later, the senate candidates come back into the senate meeting one at a time to answer the questions. President Johnson then said to me, "You can stay for the question and answer session but you cannot print what you hear in the Lions Roar. Or you can leave. The Question and Answer session is a closed meeting."

All the Senators were looking at me. No one disagreed. Now wait a minute, I thought to myself, I am attending a Student Senate meeting, a public forum, democracy at its purest form.

The printed agenda does not say "closed meeting" under New Business, just "Elections". I was there not only as a student, but as a writer for the student newspaper, to report to the students of Normandale what I hear to the best of my ability.

And here I was being censored by the President of the Student Senate and not one Student Senator was stopping it! I told the Senate that ethically I could not listen to the Question and Answer session and not report what I heard, so I left.

The five Senators were elected without anyone outside of that Senate meeting knowing neither what questions were asked nor what their answers were.

Normandale teaches classes on democracy. Students take courses in political science at Normandale. And Normandale's own Student Senate is censoring the student newspaper on printing election information on senators elected to represent them!

Later, I asked President Johnson about the closed meeting policy on the Question and Answer session for senate candidates. He told me "it is very controversial".

Controversial! It is a violation of the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights of the US Constitution, the Bill of Rights that any Senator, even a student senator, should be defending.

And where is the leadership in the Senate? Not one of the senators at that meeting took the leadership of stopping the censorship.

The minute President Johnson said to me, "you can stay and listen to the Question and Answer session, but you can't print what you hear in the Lions Roar" someone on the Senate should of thought of freedom of the press.

What a golden opportunity to show the kind of leadership that this country was based on and the constitutional rights that people defend even today.

I think that disappointed me the most. That not one senator noticed this violation of freedom of the press and took the risk of speaking up.

Normandale has a democratic process called "Student Concerns Procedure". I filed my concerns about the Student Senate Question and Answer session of potential senators and being denied freedom of the press with the Student Affairs division. I plan to report on how my complaint is processed and its resolution.