On Sunday, Feb. 23, the Student Government Association (SGA) Judiciary granted a Writ of Certiorari for a petition filed by former Senator Jackson Morris against SGA. The respondents listed in the petition include the SGA President, Secretary and all senate committee chairs. In the petition, Morris called for the judiciary to consider whether current SGA practices constitute a violation of SGA’s constitution and the Bylaws of the Senate, specifically regarding the availability of SGA minutes, meetings and proceedings to the public.
The petition first addressed Article IV, § 4 of the SGA constitution, which states “All documents, minutes, and proceedings of the Senate shall be open to the public for inspection, except those from closed meetings,” in a process facilitated by the Secretary. The petition argues that, while this clause exempts legitimately closed meetings, SGA’s website did not contain minutes from any SGA meeting, nor contain relevant information about SGA’s ruling documents or application process as mandated by the Senate Bylaws, and the Linktree provided incomplete minutes from GBMs.
At the time of publishing this article, the Senate meeting minutes from April 16, 2024 to January 21, 2025 were made publicly available on Google Drive linked on the website and the Linktree. Digital information indicates that these updates were made on Feb. 23.
The petition included specific examples of outdated information on SGA’s website, specifically pertaining to positions and policies.
“The website lists Shruti Tyagi as the Chair of Student Organizations despite Ms. Tyagi resigning in Fall 2024 (Appendix 5),” Morris wrote. “The displayed version of the Constitution says that it was last ratified on April 11th, 2023 despite being titled ‘JHU SGA Constitution November 2023,’ (Appendix 6).”
As of the date of this article’s publication, the former has been updated, but the latter remains.
Morris argues that the failure of SGA to publicize sufficient and accurate information about SGA’s meeting times, makeup, policies and work reduces member accountability to the student body.
“[Non-SGA students] deserve access to this information, and the deprivation at present hampers the ability of those who want to inspect the conduct of incumbent members before voting for them to make informed votes in student elections,” he wrote.
The petition also details that SGA does not publicize any meetings beyond general body meetings, in violation of Article 1, § 3, which states “Students have a right to attend all meetings of the SGA, and all minutes and proceedings of the SGA shall be open to student inspection, except those deemed secure by a closed session motion by the Senate.” Morris highlighted that SGA does not list meeting times and places for all SGA meetings including the Executive Cabinet, Class Programming Council (CPC), Senate Standing Legislative Committee, Committee on Student Elections (CSE), Judiciary Board, Policy Research and Development Commission (PRDC), Communications and Marketing Commission (CMC), or any other non-closed meeting except the GBMs.
“As the clause explicitly provides for an exception, it is reasonable to infer that all restrictions that do not adhere to the closed session exception are unconstitutional or, at the very least, subject to strict scrutiny and avoided when possible,” he wrote.
Additionally, the petition also cites a past non-binding advisory Judiciary ruling on Aug. 25, stating that “…due to Article 1, Section 3 in the JHU SGA Constitution, in the opinion of the Judiciary, students have a right to attend all SGA meetings, including Executive Cabinet/Class Programming Council Executive Team meetings, due to the diction of ‘Students have a right to attend all meetings of the SGA.’” In light of this, the Judiciary concluded that all minutes and proceedings of the SGA should remain open to student inspection.
The petition next examined SGA’s lack of vote recordings by Senator name and cited Article IV, § 5.1, which states that “The Senate, in the spirit of open meetings, shall keep all votes public and shall only enter Closed Session to deliberate upon Impeachment and other sensitive matters deemed necessary by the Senate,” and Bylaws Article III, § 2.1.3.3.1.7, which state how “[for] all votes made during the meeting [...] each senator’s vote will be recorded.”
However, recently, the petition states that votes were not shared for the following hearings: confirming the Senior CPC, voting on referring Sexual Assault Resource Unit (SARU) Funding Bill to the Finance Committee, voting on Lighting of the Quads tabling, approving November tabling, and approving the second Leadership Workshop.
“This negligence can be seen in the most recent GBM minutes uploaded (Appendix 10) in which there were multiple contested votes on new Senators and all votes were merely recorded as ‘[Senator’s name] was elected,’” he wrote.
Morris argues that the lack of transparency by SGA has damaged the trust the student body places in the elected officials and hinders the public from being aware of voting records.
Finally, the petition addresses SGA’s failure to record member attendances. According to Bylaws Article IV, § 3.3.5.1, “All SGA members’ attendance records shall be noted on the SGA’s website and shall be sent to the student body in a press release every semester.”
However, Morris states that the public cannot view attendance information beyond early fall semester, with no attendance data recorded for the Judiciary, CSE, CPC, PRDC, or CMC. Based on the available records, he argues that several members were required to have been removed based on absences last semester.
“If the records available are accurate, last semester several members of SGA were required to have been removed from the body under Article V § 4.1.1 as they accumulated 4 unexcused absences in a semester,” Morris contended. “The petitioner and the rest of the student body deserve to know if their representatives are, at a bare minimum, attending the meetings they are obligated to attend on account of their position.”
The petition concluded by proposing remedies against these shortcomings, including a formal apology to the student body; the publication of all meetings — excluding legitimately closed meetings, which will have a justification for their closure; and an immediate release of meeting proceedings, attendance records, SGA ruling documents and SGA members on the SGA website.
“With so much information regarding their representatives’ performance being withheld from members of the student body (attendance, meeting minutes, votes, etc.), student voters cannot determine whether an SGA member’s claims of active and impactful involvement are true,” Morris argued.
The formal hearing between Morris and the Executive and Legislative Branches will occur at a later time.
SGA Secretary Buse Koldas is the Voices editor for The News-Letter. She was not involved in the writing or reporting of this article.
