 On
my way to class the other day, I saw four words on a poster I hoped
I’d never see; Students for Virginia Foxx.
I blinked a few times and walked onto class, hoping in some way
that the poster was some sort of illusion and would be gone when
I came back. No such luck.
Who is Virginia Foxx, you ask? Currently, she is the Republican
state senator from this area. She’s also running for the 4th
district congressional seat in 2004.
I disagree with Foxx on many things. She’s a conservative Republican
after all, and I’m a liberal Democrat. I don’t agree with
her positions on the President, gay rights, tax cuts and probably
even more issues.
I don’t believe Foxx has represented student interests during
her eight years in the state senate, even though she’s from
a district with over 13,000 of us, and I don’t believe she
would represent those interests in Congress.
I met Foxx while covering “Student’s Day at the Capitol”
in March for The Appalachian. Several Student Government Association
senators had gone to talk to her and other state representatives
about their concerns over rising tuition and falling services.
The University of North Carolina Board of Governors had just called
for a tuition freeze in light of the fact that tuition had been
raised for several straight years, while universities were getting
their budgets slashed.
In the interview I conducted with Foxx, she dismissed the calls
of both the governors and students for a tuition freeze.
“I haven’t seen the latest figures on the average income
for families of students at Appalachian, but it’s rather high.
So I’d see no problem with raising tuition a little bit,”
Foxx said at the time.
As a student from one of those non-high income families who had
faced several straight years of sizable tuition hikes in a sinking
economy, I was not exactly happy to hear that. At the time I didn’t
comment. My job that day was to objectively report on what went
on.
Our SGA is not a perfect organization, but the senators who went
to Raleigh that day had done their homework. They had personal concerns
and stories about facing increasing costs that they wanted their
elected representatives to listen to.
Foxx’s attitude to the students, her constituents, who had
traveled to Raleigh to speak with her, was, in my opinion, dismissive
and condescending. The Daily Tar Heel reported that Foxx said she
was “unimpressed with the students’ emotional anecdotes.”
Dismissing the challenges that students were facing as “emotional
anecdotes” is the perfect example of just how interested she
is in our input. A quick look at her own Web site shows this attitude
is still there.
In one report about her speaking to students at Appalachian, Foxx
is said to have “displayed little sympathy” when a student
told her about the problems of working 40 hours a week and going
to college since Foxx did so back when she went to Appalachian.
Foxx’s attitude towards students is even unacceptable.
I hope students vote in record numbers in 2004, I just hope it’s
for anyone else besides Foxx. |
