Supporters of the former Student Government Association (SGA) leaders who stepped down earlier this month resubmitted an appeal yesterday in another attempt to postpone the special election scheduled for Aug. 2.
The first appeal was submitted by SGA Sen. Heidi Buchanan and drafted by former President Michael Benson and former Sen. George Gottschalk. The appeal was later determined to be invalid, according to interim President Ashley Adams.
“There’s a very strict format the appeal has to follow,” Adams said. “It has to be submitted by a senator and a specific date has to be chosen to hold the new election.”
The appeal was initially submitted to push back next week’s Joint Senate election, a decision made by the executive board, to a later date in September. Buchanan said the new version of her appeal called for the election to be held on Sept. 8 and would be signed only by her and not the more than 40 senators listed on the first appeal. A two-thirds majority vote of the senate is required to overturn the executive board’s decision, and Adams said that vote will be conducted through electronic balloting. She also said balloting could start as early as today, as soon as she receives the appeal. The deadline for senators to cast their votes would be noon on Aug. 1.
Benson, however, said he believed his work helping to draft the first appeal had nothing to do with it being ruled invalid and did not consider his work with it unethical.
The need for the new election arose when Benson and former Executive Vice President Chad Cooper stepped down from their respective positions after being found responsible for multiple charges regarding confidential files. The two received an initial sanction of deferred suspension from the Office of Student Conduct and Conflict Resolution (OSCCR), but after filing two appeals, their sanction was reduced to probation until Aug. 16.
Students have the choice to file for a review of sanctions after being found responsible by OSCCR. The appeal is reviewed by the Appeals Board, which can choose to mitigate, or lessen, the sanctions. According to the Code of Student Conduct, that “option would be exercised only in rare circumstances.”
Former SGA Executive Vice President Erin McFadzen, who ran unsuccessfully against Cooper in the April election, said she has not heard of any other student who has had their sanctions mitigated in her years of working with OSCCR through her executive board position.
“I don’t know how they pulled that off,” McFadzen said.
OSCCR Assistant Director Tanner Chesney said the Appeals Board makes their decisions on a “case-by-case basis.”
“[The Appeals Board] takes into consideration the student’s personal circumstances to decide if the sanctions should be mitigated. An example … it is finals week and a student has been suspended from the university for a semester. The suspension would go into effect immediately. However, the student may appeal the decision asking to review the imposed sanction of suspension. The student has taken responsibility for his/her actions, but is asking to have the sanction begin following finals because he/she would lose an entire semester’s worth of credits,” Chesney said in an e-mail.
Benson and Cooper would not lose a semester’s worth of credits, rather, they would lose a year’s worth of free tuition – something all SGA executive board members receive – totaling more than $24,000.
Cooper said the idea for his appeal to review the sanction came from the Appeals Board, which he said asked him why he chose not to initially request to have his sanction mitigated.
Benson said the free tuition was a part of what he considered to be his “rare circumstance.”
“As president of student government, I would have received free tuition, but now the financial burden is on my family who has to pay,” he said.
During the fall semester, former President Andres Vargas, former President Bill Durkin and McFadzen faced OSCCR concerning an illegal party, which Vargas was found responsible for hosting. Vargas stepped down, and Durkin and McFadzen were found not responsible.
Vargas did file an appeal after receiving his sanction of deferred suspension, but his attempt was unsuccessful. With her experience working with OSCCR and going through the process, McFadzen said Benson and Cooper had to have done something “compelling” to have their sanctions mitigated.
“They must have said something or done something … very, very compelling to convince the university to change their sanctions.”
However, University Communications Director Fred McGrail said the Code of Student Conduct “applies equally to all students.”
Benson said because of his role as SGA president-elect at the time of his incident, he was bound by responsibility to “do the right thing,” even though he admitted to having a previous “lying problem.”
“I had a lying problem when I was in middle school. I lied through my teeth about everything,” Benson said. “But I consciously worked to correct that problem through middle and high school.”
