The Student Government Association (SGA) Senate on Tuesday approved only four out of the five nominations to the SGA Judiciary by Executive President Alex Schupper.
Schupper reviewed 14 applications for the five positions, conducted 12 interviews and made five nominations. Senior Nayan Agarwal, sophomore Jack Bartholet, junior Jonathan Ung and sophomore Anup Regunathan were the four nominees approved by the Senate.
The nomination of Schaefer Whiteaker, who served as the chief justice of the Judiciary last year, was narrowly defeated by the Senate. A two-thirds vote of the Senate in favor is required for the approval of justices. Members of the Judiciary vote to elect the chief justice.
Whiteaker, who ran last year for the position of SGA Executive Treasurer and won the most votes, was disqualified from the race after the Judiciary found him guilty of breaking an SGA election rule. Whiteaker recused himself from the case.
Ung, who also served as a justice on the Judiciary last year, was at the meeting on Tuesday to see the results of the votes.
“The law that [Whiteaker] did break was a guideline that was not given to us in the very beginning of our case, and the law was that neither you nor any member of your team can endorse your name after the campaign period is over,” Ung said.
According to Executive Treasurer Dylan Gorman, a member of Whiteaker’s fraternity posted a Facebook status during the election endorsing him after the defined campaign period had ended. Though Whiteaker was found guilty of breaking the election rule, the statute was repealed as a result of the case.
“This was a guideline I had emailed to all the candidates who were running for any SGA position during that time period. Everyone was aware of that guideline. Everyone knew from the very beginning and that’s why we decided to disqualify,” Ung said.
The most controversial Judiciary cases of last year included the appeal by Voice for Life (VFL), a pro-life advocacy group, of the Senate’s decision to reject its application for official approval and the case the panel heard against Whiteaker himself. Many members of the SGA used the cases as a basis for their votes.
The VFL case began with the group’s application to SGA’s Appointments and Evaluations Committee for approval as a club. After much debate, the Senate voted to reject the application after members expressed concern that “sidewalk counseling,” a particular activity in VFL’s proposal, was tantamount to harassment. The activity involved VFL members approaching entrants to local abortion clinics to express their pro-life views. After its denial, VFL appealed for approval to the Judiciary in what initiated a national media storm. Eventually the club was granted approval by the Judiciary, and Whiteaker is credited with much of the work done on the case.
Before SGA’s first vote on Whiteaker’s nomination, the Senate held a 10-minute discussion closed to The News-Letter. Several senate members abstained from voting, some because of personal conflicts or friendships with Whiteaker and others for lack of information, as was the case for many of the freshman senators who abstained.
“We’re all elected to have an opinion, and if you feel you don’t have enough information to have an opinion, then we need to have more of a discussion,” Zoe Cohen, a junior class senator, said.
Many SGA members argued that Whiteaker’s campaign violation was far from malicious and that his work on the Judiciary last year, including on the Voice for Life case, proved his abilities.
“It wasn’t a clear-cut law. It wasn’t something that many people in this room really cared about until then,” Executive Secretary Kyra Toomre said.
Junior Class Senator Destiny Bailey voiced her concern that SGA’s image could be damaged by approving someone to the Judiciary who was found guilty by that same board months earlier. Others, such as Senior Class Senator Alex Pressman, argued that selecting quality candidates was more important than SGA maintaining a particular image.
“Our job as SGA is not to make ourselves look good to the student body. I think we should appoint whoever does the best job,” Pressman said.
Some SGA members saw the violation of the rule, or the lack of knowledge of the rule, as enough reason to deny Whiteaker the appointment.
“It may have been a law that we didn’t like, but it was very clear-cut. I think if that’s the basis we’re voting on then we should keep in mind the fact that Schaefer’s action was declared a clear-cut violation of the law,” Senior Class Senator Jacob Peters said.
The Senate agreed to hold a revote, but Whiteaker’s nomination failed again on the second vote to clear the two-thirds bar.
Whiteaker declined to comment.
“No Executive President has ever been turned down by the Senate for this. At least not in the past three years that I’ve been on SGA. If [the Senate] ends up overturning my appointment decision, then I have to go back and meet with [SGA Advisor Rob Turning] and Dean [of Student Life Susan] Boswell and figure out what we’re going to do from there,” Schupper said before the revote.
Schupper will look into making a new appointment for the fifth position to the Judiciary in the near future.
“I felt that reappointing someone who had broken a campaigning rule, coupled with SGA’s repeal of the rule earlier in the semester, comes across to the student body as unprofessional and makes SGA look unserious,” Senior Class Senator Aaron Tessler said. “While SGA’s mission is to work for the betterment of the campus, including appointing the best possible judicial candidates, any negative, aloof, or possibly shady perception of us will seriously undermine our ability to do our jobs in making Homewood into the best possible student experience.”
Three of the four approved panel members were incumbents. Regunathan, Agarwal and Ung served on the Judiciary last year and were recommended along with Whiteaker by Boswell and Turning for their work. Bartholet is a first-time Judiciary board member.
Editor’s Note: Jack Bartholet is a News & Features Editor for The News-Letter. He did not contribute to the reporting or editing of this story.
