SMC student Ben Kolodny Criticizes Gen-C proposal on Fox News

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After the Associated Students of Santa Monica College voted on passing Major Action Item 7.3 to construct a Social Justice/Gender Equity Center that replaces a portion of the computer lab in the Cayton Center on Monday, Nov. 27, students from both sides reacted fiercely. Both supporters and detractors held events discussing the passing of the item, filed a cure and correct form that alleged the A.S. violating the Brown Act, and now - one student spoke on national television to speak out against it.

Ben Kolodny, Vice President of the unofficial Small Government Club on campus, spoke to Heather Childers, a co-hostess for the Fox News morning show, Fox and Friends. The segment aired on 1:35 a.m. PST this Friday, Dec. 1.

According to Kolodny, a Fox News representative reached out to him to come on the show after a conservative news website, Campus Reform, posted an article that featured his online petition on Change.org opposing the A.S. approval of the center.

Childers introduces Kolody with a leading statement, saying "You started this petition not wanting your money to go to these groups that you don't identify with." But Kolodny says her assertion isn't completely true, saying that he is a bisexual.

But he clarifies that he is opposed to the passing of a gender equity center because "it’s absolutely ridiculous that we’re spending five hundred thousand dollars of people’s money for something they themselves don’t want and then our administration doesn’t believe we need. Our administration did a survey, and they surveyed fifty LGBTQ, DACA, undocumented students and found that not a single one of them felt unsafe on campus. So, the fact that we’re still pushing this and then our administration is still moving forward with this, should tell you it’s an agenda and not something we need.” Kolodny explained to Childers that this is just another instance where college administrators are pushing an agenda they feel is necessary, that students do not want.

After reviewing the proposal for item 7.3, Childers asked who would be paying for the proposed budget. She then asserted that "the [school] administration doesn’t want to pay for it, so they want the students to pay for it.” Kolodny agrees with her, saying that the administration is the one who first introduced this proposal. But according to the official proposal, a group of faculty and students, independent of the school administration, were the ones who initially came up with the idea of a gender equity center on campus.

In a statement made to the Corsair prior to his interview with Fox, Kolodny stated, “This is part of our continuing push to pressure the administration into rectifying the issues that we've been speaking in for this a full week now.”

You can watch the full segment on YouTube by clicking here.