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Introduction:
Sometimes, says mediator Nancy Ferrell, who is at the table and who isn't becomes a contentious issue. A key question is whether or not extremist groups should be represented.
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This rough transcript provides a text alternative to audio. We apologize for occasional errors and unintelligible sections (which are marked with ???).
Representation Questions
Nancy Ferrell
Former CRS Mediator, Dallas Office
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[Full Interview]
Question:
Did representation ever become a difficult issue? "Why's he at the table and I'm not? or vice versa?
Answer:
More, "Why is that fraternity here since they're the perpetrators? Because they were self-selected out of the groups. If a group was a party, then they self-selected their representation to the table. Now they could've had two or three choices maybe, but generally any group in the student group population, I believe, had two or three representatives at the table. But they were self selected, so that was part of the way they were not competing with each other. They'd already taken care of that. If we left a group out, that might become an issue. Why wasn't this group represented there? A lot of times the parties will want to leave out the most outrageous groups, and we try to make it clear that those are the very people you need at the table. They definitely need to be a part of that environment of discussion, where they see that people are trying to reason, and that their approach is not the acceptable approach. Sometimes they'll drop out once they see that they're not going to be able to dominate. But at least they need to be invited.
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