With only days left in the 18th session of the Associated Students of Madison, student leaders gathered Wednesday for one of the last times to engage in what will likely, and rightfully, be its lasting legacy of constant infighting and a disregard for the rules and expectations that govern them. In approving the eligibility of the Multicultural Student Coalition, ASM ended its year with an especially disturbing bang, and not the whimper for which we had hoped.

Wednesday’s Student Council meeting was a case study in the failings of student government. On every side, student leaders have gone out of their way to make a mockery of the faith accorded them in representing their student constituents. From threats of physical violence on The Badger Herald comment boards, to middle fingers, insults and intimidation at Student Council meetings, the decorum expected of student government has been almost wholly absent.

The behavior of those involved, no matter their politics, is inexcusable. What little respect there is for process and procedure has all-too-easily translated to even less respect for fellow students and members of student government. Fights over funding eligibility and bylaw violations have only served to further divide and distance a student body from those claiming to govern it. ASM has ceded the last modicum of relevance remaining in the minds of students through near-constant internal discord.

The funding eligibility of MCSC has been central to the disunity of ASM throughout the session, climaxing with interim Chancellor David Ward’s irresolute and ill-informed decision earlier this month to remand the eligibility determination to Student Council. By sending the decision to a group with little to no training in Supreme Court-mandated viewpoint neutrality and numerous conflicts of interest, and demanding the decision be made in a mere five days, Ward demanded the impossible of a Student Council known for its inefficiency.

With Wednesday’s approval of this eligibility comes a disheartening affirmation of ASM leadership’s true allegiances, not to any notion of student power, but to political convenience and opportunism. By placing its own sense of morality before procedure, Student Council’s self-perceived teleological suspension of the ethical has highlighted its true approach to governance.

ASM Chair Allie Gardner’s handling of Wednesday’s affairs is an insult to all those who have invested time and effort into creating and upholding the policies and charges of student government. Impeachment – though arguably warranted by her silencing of student leaders, disregard of the Student Judiciary and failure to uphold ASM bylaws – would be of little consequence so late in the session. This board can only hope the next session will learn from her mistakes.

But it is the Student Council as a whole that bears a great part of the blame through its abject failure to govern. Having been handed what should have been a fundamental and necessary exercise of “student power” in denying Ward’s remanding of the MCSC question, ASM – under Gardner’s leadership – bowed to the demands of administration.

For all the power and autonomy the university so uncomfortably gives us, student leaders failed to embrace it when that responsibility came in direct opposition to personal and political allegiances. Constantly engaging and upholding the processes countless students before us have created is the most critical aspect of student governance. Powers wrested from administration years ago have been relinquished by a majority vote of the 18th session.

This session cannot end soon enough.