On Monday, I attended the Student Government Association (SGA) meeting that included a discussion between Northeastern students and Jeff Doggett, director of government relations and community affairs, regarding the recent arrests in Mission Hill.

Doggett spoke before taking questions, explaining that he wanted to have a productive discussion, free of the rhetoric that was being spewed not only by students, but by neighbors of the communities around campus. I was subsequently frustrated and disappointed that throughout the Q’A session, all Doggett seemed to produce was the rhetoric of the very administration he represents.

Since arriving at Northeastern last January, this is the first time I’ve seen a substantial amount of students voice their opinion and concern about an incident regarding our rights as students as well as our quality of life. I think that instead of engaging students about our concerns and having a worthwhile discussion, the Northeastern administration has tried to quell this student outcry by sending Doggett to dodge students’ legitimate questions and create paradoxical statements in order to skew the reality of the situation.

At one point, Doggett pondered the idea of having school officials instead of the Boston Police Department (BPD) deal with parties in and around Northeastern. He seemed concerned that students wouldn’t treat school officials with the same authority they would Boston police officers. However, when asked why Doggett accompanies law enforcement on “ride-a-longs,” Doggett contradicted himself, and said students would take a situation more seriously if someone from the university was with BPD.

Having the administration send a scapegoat like Doggett into a crowd of frustrated students is not the way to solve the problem. There needs to be a discussion that engages more than just a handful of students with the director of government relations and community affairs. In order to make any progress, representatives from Student Affairs, the Office of Student Conduct and Conflict Resolution, the president’s office and neighbors and students from the surrounding community need to be involved.

I believe this situation can be solved, but the meeting Monday was not only counterproductive, it was borderline offensive to the Northeastern students who care enough about their school to try and discuss the issue at hand.

– Max Wertheimer is a middler political science major.