Tl;dr -- campus politics sucks and there was enough drama to make Eva Longoria proud.
I am no newbie when it comes to politics. However, if you would have told me a year ago that I’d be running for Vice President of student government, I would have never believed you. That’s not me, I’m on the sidelines. I’m a grassroots person. I’m the one who takes critical theory classes and applies what I learn to real life. I never saw myself as someone who would try to get on the inside. I always learned about changing systems from the inside, but I never thought I would be someone trying to do so.
That all changed when my friend and fellow student, Caleb Krieg, suggested we run for Students’ Association (SA) President and Vice President. I knew how inefficient SA Government was at making things better for students of color in light of the anonymous racist threats posed to them over the last few years. I knew that the same people were elected to SA Government every single year despite students not knowing what exactly they did in office. But I didn’t think there was anything I could do about it, until this past year. I got to know the current President and Vice President and saw firsthand that the culture of this school was, albeit very slowly, changing under their administration. So when Caleb asked me to be his running partner for this coming election, I decided it was time to make my mark, if I could, on this university. My boyfriend lovingly warned me about the stress to come. Little did I know how much I should’ve listened to him.
We put so much effort into our campaign and our platform. We spoke to students all over campus, asking them what they wanted to change about SA Government, and we built our initiatives directly off of their words. We had our initiatives fully detailed and ready when campaigning began [something very few other candidates achieved]. Campaigning began Tuesday, and Wednesday night the current President and VP hosted a debate for all the candidate pairs running. Side-note: this election cycle saw a record six teams run for the pair of positions.
The debate achieved precisely what we had hoped: Our honest passion for students’ rights and our dedication to transparency and fairness in SA Government shined through in our words. Several of our competitors attempted to undermine our authenticity by reminding students that we had very little SA experience between us, but we responded that we were proud of our experience being outside SA Government. After all, what good is it to flaunt three years of SA experience if students feel there has been no progress made within the system?
After the debate came to a close, things went downhill. And they went downhill fast. That night, several current SA senators joined one another in posting on my Facebook wall and doing what could be considered mild cyberbullying. I was chastised for not knowing one of them was Vice President my sophomore year, as if it was the students’ fault for the failure of elected officials reaching out to the student body. You’d think a group of “adults” elected to serve fellow students’ needs would be a little more interested in addressing student concerns than preserving their fragile egos. Unfortunately, you’d be wrong.
It only got uglier from there. While Caleb and I continued meeting with students to address issues on campus, other candidates were busy sabotaging the campaigns of their competitors. Each ticket was invited to speak with the school paper, the Campus Times, to explain their campaign on the print platform. Many of the candidates took this time to reiterate why they chose to run and what they hope to accomplish. Some, however, seemingly decided instead to coordinate with the same senators I mentioned earlier (shocking, I know) to mount an attack aimed at disqualifying another pair of candidates. The Campus Times reported it as an anonymous tip they received, but the fact that those quoted were the same people who attacked me the day before combined with screenshots of correspondences conveniently provided by the SA insider candidate paints a pretty clear picture. Granted, if those running were exaggerating about their SA accomplishments, that absolutely has to be addressed. But to underhandedly organize an attack pitting Student Government against a pair of students without speaking to them in person first is, quite frankly, immature.
It only gets worse. The unofficial/official campaign manager of the SA insider ticket was later revealed to me to be the current SA senator who was most vocal in attacking me on Facebook and quoted in the article attacking another candidate pair. One of the people on staff of the Campus Times, listening to everyone’s interviews, was also an SA insider very close to some of the candidates running. Another of the senators who in fact initiated the attack on Facebook (he later apologized) endorsed the SA insider team publicly. The speaker of the SA Senate and one of the people in charge of governing election and campaign protocol also endorsed these candidates. If Hansel and Gretel used a trail of breadcrumbs to find their way through the woods, SA government might as well have dropped entire loaves of bread behind them. What I’m trying to say with my half-baked metaphor is that the trail of corruption was not hard to follow. In fact, I can’t see how it could’ve been much easier.
Some might see this article as the ravings of a sore loser who didn’t win the election, and some part of my subconscious might agree with you. For the most part, however, I see this election as a success. We now have an SA president who is not a SA insider, has no SA experience to cast over his lack of student life involvement, and can speak for the students…because he has not been swept up in a clique that sees themselves as being above students. But most importantly, my not being elected means that I can continue working directly with students to hold our student government and administration accountable. I don’t have to watch what I say so that I can keep good relations with the current SA officials. I can call out their tone-deaf response to campus-wide racism, their inaction when students’ lives are threatened anonymously, and their inextricable ties to elitist organizations. I can help be the voice for the students in a way that the institution of SA Government will never truly allow.
This article is not meant to slander, slam, or slay (though I will not apologize if it does all three). The reason I am writing lies in the argument I kept hearing during my campaign: “it’s just student government, calm down.” It may just be student government, but injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere, or so Martin Luther King Jr. said. I’m inclined to think he knew a little something about fighting against exclusive establishments. So what I’m getting at is, even if it’s “just” student government, that is no excuse for corruption and lying, underhandedness and toxicity. I understand that many of you in SA Government aspire to a future career in politics, and in a sense you are already perfectly groomed for such a future. But I would caution you to think about what that actually means.
