Student organizations packed the Talley Governance Chambers Wednesday evening for a Student Senate meeting addressing several controversial bills, including Resolution 42, which calls for a petition to change Columbus Day at NC State to an Indigenous Peoples Day Celebration Act.

Resolution 42 was passed after heavy debate for approximately 40 minutes. The bill passed with 27 votes in the affirmative, seven in the negative, five absences and five abstentions. The 27 votes met the simple majority needed to pass a bill in the Student Senate.

The Indigenous Peoples Day Celebration Act resolves that the Student Senate will write a letter to the university addressing the Student Governments concern with keeping Columbus Day as a university holiday. 

The letter will ask the university to change the official calendar, removing the federal holiday Columbus Day and inserting an Indigenous Peoples Day, according to Karli Moore, senior studying chemistry and the senator that introduced the bill.

Moore thanked former Student Senate President Alex Grindstaff, a signatory on the bill, for his assistance with the bill.

The bill states that the Student Senate supports a resolution to recognize and celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day in place of Columbus Day, and it urges the university to officially recognize and celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day in place of Columbus Day. 

The Senate is planning to work with the Office of Institutional Equity and Diversity and other campus centers of diversity advocacy to add and educational component, such as a discussion of history and culture of indigenous people, according to the bill.  

Additionally, it will advocate for this holiday at a local, state and federal level, the bill stated.

The Indigenous People’s Day would give Native American students a chance to reeducate students at NC State about the facts surrounding Columbus Day, Moore said.

By passing the bill, Student Government is acknowledging that the territory known today as the United States of America was inhabited for thousands of years before the arrival of Columbus. 

The bill stated “the University has a responsibility to oppose the systematic racism towards Indigenous people in the United States, which perpetuates high rates of poverty and income inequality, exacerbating disproportionate health, education and social crises.”

Several students in attendance argued that the bill be passed due to the fact that a holiday shouldn’t celebrate the discovery of a place where people were already living.

Many students spoke in length about why they thought that the bill was important for indigenous people. 

NC State will be the first college in North Carolina to have the Indigenous People’s Day, said Zack King, a senior studying political science and senator in student senate. 

Priya Loganarthar, a freshmen studying human biology and senator in student senate proposed an amendment to the bill that would create an indigenous people’s day without removing Columbus Day that was met with contention. 

Nearly no student senators voted in the affirmative on the amendment.