Several student leaders, all student government representatives, have put together a petition for administrative leaders to take action on last Sunday’s hate crime and its fallout, including the controversy over certain CU football players’ Twitter accounts.

You can access the petition here. Its creators are encouraging everyone to share their vote and possible solutions. The writers of the petition “urge the administration to seriously investigate and evaluate what factors led to the events and postings that have disturbed the Columbia community this week,” and ultimately call for a commission to be formed by members of administration to assess the “systems of accountability” within the CU football team and Athletics at large:

An independent commission should be formed as soon as possible by the offices of the President and Provost to investigate whether or not systems of accountability for situations like this exist in the University, and how these systems, if they do exist, failed in the case of the Athletics Department and the football program.

According to the petition, the commission should issue a public report of their findings by July 31. The petition makes a particular point to address the inconsistent administrative response to past controversies, and the overall lack of transparency within both the Athletics department and administration in general.

The co-writers are: David Fine, CC ‘13, Outgoing Chair, Student Governing Board; Karishma Habbu, CC ‘13, Outgoing President, Columbia College Student Council; JungHee Hyun, BC ’13, Outgoing President, Student Government Association; Saketh Kalathur, CC ‘13, Outgoing President, Activities Board at Columbia; Tim Qin, SEAS ‘13, Outgoing President, Engineering Student Council; and Jennifer Wisdom, GS ‘13 – Outgoing President, General Studies Student Council.

Update, 5/10, 12pm: The authors of the petition have written in to explain that they changed the wording of the petition to better explain their stance.  Their explanations after the jump.

UPDATE — 11:00 AM, 5/10/13: The petition has been changed to better reflect the original intention of the co-writers. We apologize to any student athletes who felt that this petition unfairly targeted them. The URL and some language has been changed. We believe that no student should be punished by the Office of Judicial Affairs for non-threatening speech on campus, even if that speech is offensive or reprehensible. Rather we are advocating for transparent mechanisms on the administrative level that would re-evaluate a student athlete’s status as an athlete and official representative of the University if those student athletes are found to have issued public statements or acted in violation to the conduct that the Athletics Department and University expects of them. While we believe that the substance of this plan remains unchanged, any student who wishes to retract their name from the petition may email contact@fixcolumbia.org with their information, and their name will be removed promptly.

UPDATE — 1:33 AM, 5/10/13: After receiving feedback from the community regarding student privacy, the co-writers have decided to edit Item #7. We have also clarified that we do not tolerate any form of bigotry, including Islamophobia. We believe the overall sentiment of this plan for action remains unchanged.  Those with concerns may email contact@fixcolumbia.org