Petition started to ensure NDSU Homecoming Court has one king and one queen

Fargo, North Dakota – An NDSU mechanical engineering student has launched an online petition to bring back the university’s homecoming king and queen.

On Change.org, Landon Allex initiated the petition. Allex stated that he wants to reform the rules for upcoming elections rather than trying to disqualify this year’s victors.

In 2021, NDSU modified the voting procedure so that students could select just two candidates to be the homecoming royalty. This year’s winners were both guys, Connor Dilse and Zachary Quirk.

According to Allex, a man and a woman should still be recognized by two distinct titles.

“We need to hold our public institutions accountable to recognizing this basic truth,” Allex said. “NDSU has avoided the gender issue on this topic by choosing to remove gender from the tradition. Although this change was voted on by the student body four years ago, this vote was held in the aftermath of Covid and does not likely represent the ideals of the students today.”