The resolution to show support for Suffolk University’s faculty gets tabled by the Senate at the last Student Government Association meeting on April 24.
The SGA Judicial Review Board voted in an unanimous 8-0 vote that the resolution should be pushed forwards into voting by the Senate, seeing as the format was accurate and had cited sources that were reliable.
The Judicial Review Board also received an anonymous complaint from a member of the Senate that the main author of the resolution engaged in behavior that they believed to be “voter intimidation.”
Allegedly, multiple Senators experienced attempts to have their votes influenced through private messages as attempts to persuade them to vote a certain way. The board agreed that this was “unethical lobbying” due to the unique situation of the political standing of the main author of the resolution.
“You should not feel intimidated or persuaded to vote in any certain way,” said Grace Kane during the meeting.
It was not specified in the meeting which member of SGA was coercing Senators, however it was alluded to be an author of the resolution who holds a high standing in the student government.
Moreover, the board was informed that some of the information within the resolution might not be correct by the university’s provost. With that, the review board felt that the resolution should be tabled, but ultimately left the decision up to the Senate.
Before voting, the authors and co-authors of the resolution had to read the resolution in full to the Senate and then were given a strict 15 minutes to take more questions and amendments to the resolution.
Most of the questions and concerns around the resolution circled back, once again, to how this would benefit or harm the students. Current SGA President Clinton Oreofe and current SGA Secretary Ruby Walsh both insisted that the resolution be tabled so that it could be rewritten to be more “student focused.”
As the only one responding to questions despite co-authors standing up there with him, next year’s SGA President, Charlie Reyna-Demes responded to these questions by arguing that the Senate needed to act with “compassion” for the faculty and not out of what the students could be faced with after.
Once the 15 minutes elapsed, the voting began. There were only 29 eligible voters within the Senate – as authors, co-authors and judicial review board members are ineligible to vote. The voting was completely anonymous and done on slips of paper. The voting had to be done twice as the first time around there were more votes than they were supposed to have, the second time with the voters being called by name to come down and deposit their votes.
In order for the resolution to pass as the final draft, it requires 2/3rds Senate approval, which is 20 votes. With the second round of voting complete, the final votes were six ‘no’, 15 ‘yes’ and eight abstentions. Because the vote did not reach the 2/3rds threshold, the resolution was tabled.
Oreofe ended his last meeting as SGA president by applauding Renya-Demes in his diligent efforts of defending and supporting this resolution and in consistent involvement in SGA, wishing him a great presidency come next semester.
With that, the new E-Board was brought up to the stand and presented before the Senate, giving their first few decrees in their new positions before calling the meeting to close.
“Where I wanted to be two years ago is where I am now and that’s all thanks to Grace Kane,” said next year’s SGA Vice President Kayleigh Carey. “And I’m so excited to take care of SGA next year.”
