Recently, the Obama administration has come out to say what almost everyone already knew -- that the former administration was [illegally] torturing prisoners. The big O says that torture is baaad, but we're going to look forward, not backward. In other words, the chances are next to nil that anyone of any importance will be held accountable for being bad boys or girls!
I've been down this road before. Back in the early 90s, I was a graduate student at Pittsburg State University (PSU). I was elected to the Student Government Association (SGA) Senate as a graduate rep. It soon came to my attention that SGA repeatedly didn't follow its own rules nor many university regulations. So, with a few of my comrades in a "socialist" organization, we set out to try to remedy this sad situation.
We tried to point out a few things in a friendly and non-confrontational manner. SGA simply ignored us. We probably would have dropped the whole thing, but then SGA did something really egregious -- they bribed students to vote in the SGA elections!
During the Spring elections, SGA promised to provide each student who voted with a coupon for a free pizza at Pizza Hut. Not only did this act violate university policy, it also violated state law! So, we went to SGA to point this out and, not surprisingly, they ignored us. Next, we went to the administration and they ignored us too. Finally, one of my mates noticed in the student handbook that students could bring charges against university organizations via a "Student Judicial Court".
Unfortunately, because the "court" was rarely utilized, no one had bothered -- per university regulations -- to appoint any justices at the beginning of the school year. The Office of Students Affairs charged SGA -- the DEFENDANT in the proceedings themselves -- to select the student justices. We countered that this constituted a direct conflict of interest and, you guessed it, the administration ignored us.
As we prepared for our day in court, I contacted the Attorney General's office for the State of Kansas. I explained our concerns and they mailed me a legal opinion that the PSU SGA had violated state law. I presented this memo in open student court to the utter dismay of both SGA and the school's administration. The upshot of all of this is that we won in a unanimous decision!!
Now that we had won our case, we expected that the election in question would be thrown out as tainted. That certainly seemed like the logical course of action to take. Unfortunately, foreshadowing the Obama administration, the court ruled that, while the election had been tainted by illegal actions, they weren't going to overturn the results. Instead, they promised to rewrite some rules (SGA habitually ignores their own rules) to ensure this would never happen again.
Over the course of one and half years, our little ragtag group of do-gooders took SGA to student court over 20 times. We won every single case, yet every illegal action was allowed to stand. It was absolutely maddening!!!
What's worse, it didn't stop SGA from breaking their own rules and/or university regulations. After we graduated, they just picked up where they left off. That's a lesson President Obama should take to heart.
I've been down this road before. Back in the early 90s, I was a graduate student at Pittsburg State University (PSU). I was elected to the Student Government Association (SGA) Senate as a graduate rep. It soon came to my attention that SGA repeatedly didn't follow its own rules nor many university regulations. So, with a few of my comrades in a "socialist" organization, we set out to try to remedy this sad situation.
We tried to point out a few things in a friendly and non-confrontational manner. SGA simply ignored us. We probably would have dropped the whole thing, but then SGA did something really egregious -- they bribed students to vote in the SGA elections!
During the Spring elections, SGA promised to provide each student who voted with a coupon for a free pizza at Pizza Hut. Not only did this act violate university policy, it also violated state law! So, we went to SGA to point this out and, not surprisingly, they ignored us. Next, we went to the administration and they ignored us too. Finally, one of my mates noticed in the student handbook that students could bring charges against university organizations via a "Student Judicial Court".
Unfortunately, because the "court" was rarely utilized, no one had bothered -- per university regulations -- to appoint any justices at the beginning of the school year. The Office of Students Affairs charged SGA -- the DEFENDANT in the proceedings themselves -- to select the student justices. We countered that this constituted a direct conflict of interest and, you guessed it, the administration ignored us.
As we prepared for our day in court, I contacted the Attorney General's office for the State of Kansas. I explained our concerns and they mailed me a legal opinion that the PSU SGA had violated state law. I presented this memo in open student court to the utter dismay of both SGA and the school's administration. The upshot of all of this is that we won in a unanimous decision!!
Now that we had won our case, we expected that the election in question would be thrown out as tainted. That certainly seemed like the logical course of action to take. Unfortunately, foreshadowing the Obama administration, the court ruled that, while the election had been tainted by illegal actions, they weren't going to overturn the results. Instead, they promised to rewrite some rules (SGA habitually ignores their own rules) to ensure this would never happen again.
Over the course of one and half years, our little ragtag group of do-gooders took SGA to student court over 20 times. We won every single case, yet every illegal action was allowed to stand. It was absolutely maddening!!!
What's worse, it didn't stop SGA from breaking their own rules and/or university regulations. After we graduated, they just picked up where they left off. That's a lesson President Obama should take to heart.
But, bringing the people responsible to justice would mean upsetting the bigwigs. We can't have THAT!
ReplyDeleteOf course, you're right. Me forgot. ;)
ReplyDelete