Student government fails as much as judicial affairs

Sean Ely’s article Judicial boards violate MSU rule (SN 12/6) does more to highlight the inconsistencies and failures of ASMSU than it does the student judicial system here at MSU. ASMSU, as outlined in the Academic Freedom Report, or AFR, is required to appoint undergraduate members to each of the student judiciaries. Until the 2006-07 school year, however, ASMSU failed to uphold that mandate, and it fell to the Department of Student Life to guarantee due process for students charged with violating university policy. For years, ASMSU has given its tacit consent to the DSL to carry out the recruitment, training, and selection of student judiciary members. Only in the past two years has ASMSU begun upholding its AFR-outlined responsibility to students and the judicial system.

Ely’s article “exposing” the judiciary for operating without a code and without appointed members is laughable. The reality is that Mike Leahy, chairperson of ASMSU Student Assembly, decided to wait until now, four months into the school year, to hold the meetings to make the appointments official, request that the DSL start drafting updated codes of procedure, which should have been done at the start of the summer, and smear the only student governance body that has acted with any consistency over the past decade.

If ASMSU had been providing crucial oversight, the drafting of judicial code would have occurred a decade ago in tandem with making appointments to the boards! Neither the DSL nor the judiciaries have had time to do all the legislative work that ASMSU should have been doing for years. The AFR requires that hearings be convened “expeditiously,” a rather difficult task when the DSL lacks ASMSU support. As a current judicial board member and former ASMSU representative, I welcome the oversight from ASMSU, but I do not appreciate the smears. There is no way to guarantee due process to students if ASMSU takes its sweet time in getting the ball running. Mr. Leahy, your complaints are little more than a hollow echo of your organization’s own shortcomings. You have the right to be involved, not the right to stop the process at your whim. For shame.

Alexander Plum

international relations and political theory and constitutional democracy senior and member of University Student Appeals Board