Controversial legislation and appointments caused emotions to erupt in front of a full student gallery at Tuesday night's Undergraduate Student Government (USG) Senate meeting.

During the almost six-hour meeting, tensions peaked when two senators were asked to leave for arguing out of order and one senator tried to remove USG Vice President Takkeem Morgan from his position as chair for the rest of the night.

The biggest point of contention, however, was the re-appointment of Anthony Bizzaro as governmental relations director.

Senators and some students in attendance expressed concern that Bizzaro was allegedly involved in a "homophobic" and "anti-woman" incident at the end of last spring semester.

Town Sen. Kelly Ross would not elaborate on specifics of the alleged incident.

Bizzaro was appointed to the cabinet position by USG President Ian Rosenberger two weeks ago, but was not approved by the Senate at that time.

Rosenberger said he felt the Senate was uninformed about Bizzaro originally, so he re-appointed him Tuesday with recommendations from colleagues, hoping the Senate would make a more informed decision, but the body rejected the appointment once again.

Rosenberger said he was glad members voted the way they felt.

"I completely respect their vote and will adhere to it," he said.

Many senators voiced feelings of betrayal and a lack of respect between the executive and legislative branches.

"[The fact that he was] already rejected by another branch should be respected," former Town Sen. Manish Vaidya said.

The allocation of USG Academic Assembly's operational budget for the year, something the Senate is required to do according to the USG Constitution, was also a topic of debate, but was eventually accepted.

One thing all senators agreed upon during the meeting was the importance of legislation involving the university's minority enrollment and framework to foster diversity, which ends this year.

According to the two legislative pieces, the Senate will investigate ways to help improve and maintain minority enrollment. USG leaders and senators will use their findings to make recommendations during monthly meetings with university administrators.

Town Sen. Deanna Nachreiner said the meeting was productive, but voiced concerns about the level of disrespect senators showed one another.

"We're still working out a lot of internal kinks, but ... it was nice to see legislation passed that is going to help students," she said.