Reminiscent of the federal government back in 2013, on Oct. 1 Student Council shut down after failing to appoint its Rules and Ethics Board in its first meeting of the fall semester. The closure prevented Student Council from hosting meetings and allocating funds, to the detriment of the CIOs and students it serves. As of last night, Student Council passed a bill in a special session creating a board, which will allow it to resume its activities.
Student Council has not had a properly-appointed ethics board for several years, which, according to President Abraham Axler, has been due to an oversight of the Council’s bylaws. This has therefore been a failure of past Student Council presidencies, and not just this year’s governing body. To some extent, it may be correct to say this was a benign lapse: bylaws can often be cumbersome for student organizations and contain nuance that students, who usually only hold leadership positions for one short year, may miss. Especially since elected tenures are short, larger aims may generally be a better focus for elected leaders.
But the bylaws in question here — mandating the creation of an internal oversight board — are particularly important for the functioning of any governing body. Ethics and oversight are integral to effective governance, as we have previously written about with regard to the Virginia state legislature. At a student government level, it is especially easy to implement measures for internal oversight, and the executive board of Student Council is responsible for adhering to the bylaws they have campaigned to enforce or improve.
As College Representative Uhunoma Edamwen has said, “This issue was foreseen. People knew about it; it is in the bylaws.” Granted, Student Council faced the complication that the bylaws require the outgoing Rules and Ethics Board to administer a quiz to the incoming board, and there is no outgoing board to do so. But this complication is fairly easy to overcome. Indeed, Student Council addressed this problem during its special session last night — so why couldn’t members address this in the weeks leading up to Oct. 1?
It is not exceedingly difficult to create an ethics board, arrange a new member orientation and administer a quiz — the only three requirements mandated by the bylaws. While this short closure doesn’t appear to have done much damage to Student Council or the student body, it is worrisome that student leaders were taken by surprise by a longstanding requirement. We are pleased Student Council members have addressed this issue relatively quickly, and we hope this closure serves as a lesson and reminder that students are elected to govern, and that there is at least some accountability in our system.
Correction: A previous version of this article stated Student Council has not had an ethics board for the past three years, when, in fact, a board was appointed in 2013.
Read More
EDITORIAL: Celebrating and reflecting on The Cavalier Daily’s independence
By Editorial Board | YesterdayOur independence grants us the ability to ask the hard questions and to say what University representatives cannot.
ARRAS: U.Va. must revise the Sexual Assault Prevention Training module
By Aoife Arras | 2 days agoIn addition to its failures in interactivity, the module lacks details specific to the University and discusses key concepts in universal terms.
EDITORIAL: Pedestrian safety is an institutional imperative
By Editorial Board | 4 days agoAmid a national crisis of pedestrian safety, Charlottesville and the University are also struggling to properly maintain pedestrian safety.
