The Council Schmouncil Award goes to the 18th Session of the Associated Students of Madison’s Student Council for some of the most uninspiring leadership and downright absurdity that surpassed even the antics at the Capitol.
While members of Student Council managed to create new and imaginative ways to stall meetings, postpone votes and circumvent the other two branches of ASM, in the end they accomplished absolutely nothing.
They squabbled over reinstating two members who violated election laws, failed to elect a vice-chair for the majority of the year, neglected to fill a handful of empty seats, tossed 100 grand into a pot called “alumni training,” eliminated all funding for a commencement speaker, allocated funding in a non-viewpoint neutral fashion … need we go on?
Worst of all, Chair Allie Gardner managed to alienate the other branches of ASM and set back student rights with a single “aye” when she voted in favor of giving funding the Multicultural Student Coalition.
She treated Student Judiciary’s ban against voting like a parent’s warning to come back before curfew. She silenced students who were experts on the issue from speaking at the hearings. Worst of all, she failed to recuse herself from voting even though she has strong ties to the group. She also set the precedent that ASM will forever be subject to the pronouncements – no matter how inaccurate or ill-stated – of the chancellor.
In short, she and the other representatives who voted in favor of the measure violated U.S. Supreme Court precedent, federal and state law, the ASM constitution and bylaws, and Board of Regents policy F-50. This set back student power several years, undoing the hard work of the 17th session, 16th session and all those preceding.
With every idiotic move by Student Council, this board would laugh and say, “It couldn’t possibly get worse!” How wrong we were.
Good riddance, 18th session. You deserve this award for all your ridiculousness, silliness, preposterousness, irrationality, unreasonableness … again, need we go on?
