These topics were addressed in meetings with Sen. Jim Merritt, R-Indianapolis, and Provost Lauren Robel.
IUSA Chief of Staff Sara Zaheer and Director of State and Legislative Affairs Patrick Lockhart met with Merritt on Friday, Nov. 13, to discuss updating the Indiana Lifeline Law.
“He was the one who originally wrote the bill, so we thought it would be a great idea to go in there and voice some of our concerns that we’ve heard from student groups and student feedback since the beginning of the year,” Lockhart said.
The Indiana Lifeline Law is supposed to prohibit legal consequences for those who are underage when they call for emergency medical attention in alcohol-related emergencies.
However, Lockhart said there are some ambiguities in the law that IUSA wants clarified and updates the organization wants to be made. He said Merritt was receptive and seemed on board with everything they had to say.
One ambiguity that law has is how the legal protections actually work, Lockhart said. The law is not totally clear about how far the protections extend or from what entities underage people have protection, Lockhart said.
He said IUSA wants the law to clearly state that students who need the emergency medical attention and students who call for emergency medical attention will not face any legal repercussions from any entity, whether at a city, county or other level.
They also discussed extending protection from legal consequences to all intoxicated minors at the scene where emergency medical attention is needed, Lockhart said.
Lockhart said sometimes students might move a person in need of emergency care before calling for help to prevent other party-goers from getting in trouble. That could further endanger the person in need, Lockhart said. Extending protection to all people present could help keep students safe, he said.
“We had heard stories of people being transported ... and when someone’s in that state, that’s just not a risk you can take,” Lockhart said.
The last point Lockhart and Zaheer brought up to Merritt was trying to get higher education institutions to respect the intention of the law and not give consequences within their university system for using the law. A college or university can still put an infraction on the students’ records even if the city police cannot ticket them.
“We don’t want there to be any hurdles when it comes to the law,” Lockhart said. “We don’t want people to have conversations or hesitate when someone’s health or life is at risk. We just want students to do what’s right and make those calls.”
Executive members also recently met with Robel to discuss a variety of topics, including diversity and inclusion.
Zaheer said she feels students need to be more aware of how to report incidents on campus and also understand more clearly what incidents are appropriate to report.
After the meeting, the link to the incident-reporting site for IU was added to the Canvas login screen.
Additionally, IUSA released a student safety survey that all students can fill out.
Also discussed with Robel was an initiative IUSA is currently working on to excuse absences for job or internship interviews.
Zaheer said Robel seemed receptive to the idea but told IUSA to propose restraints on the number of absences, a way to verify the interviews because there could be pushback from faculty.
“Faculty want their students to show up in class, but one of the reasons people go to college is to get a job, often, and I don’t think we should have students deciding whether or not they want to lose points for participation or they want to go to an interview,” Zaheer said.
