The Student Elections Commission issued a cease and desist order on Tuesday to Student Union Executive Vice President Daniel Ellis, among other Union members, demanding they discontinue using the organization’s resources in support of the Build BU election campaign.
The SEC warned that continued use of Union Facebook and Twitter accounts to campaign for the Build BU slate could get the slate disqualified from the election.
In the statement, posted at 8 p.m., the SEC wrote that Ellis, a College of Arts and Sciences senior, and others violated election codes stating, “spaces or materials of the Student Union or any college government may not be used in support of any campaign.”
SEC cited Union’s social network pages as examples of the “spaces and materials” e-board members used to promote the slate.
“[Ellis] has failed to respect the boundaries between personal advocacy and official endorsement,” according to the statement.“By integrating with the Build BU slate (‘BuildBU’) as a campaign staff and assuming a central role in their campaign, Mr. Ellis has made it nearly impossible to distinguish between his role as Vice President and his role as an advocate for BuildBU.”
A Union Tweet from April 14 accused members of the Rhettvolution slate of vandalizing Union property. It read, “You have vandalized a $1,600 glass case @Rhettvolution, and it isn’t coming off. You are attacking STUDENTS’ hard work.”
Union later removed the Tweet and posted a clarification that it did not have evidence that the Rhettvolution committed the vandalism.
On April 15, Union spokesman Vinny Squillace, a CAS senior, posted a note on the Union’s official Facebook page that stated Union is not officially endorsing any slate.
“Build BU is made up of Union members, and a few of our members are clearly ardent supporters,” he wrote in the post. “This does not mean some of our members do not support the Rhett Offensive and RhettVolution. . . From an organizational standpoint, we will remain neutral.”
However, Ellis and Squillace are also listed as having officially endorsed Build BU on the slate’s website.
Ellis also wrote a perspective piece for The Daily Free Press’ opinion editorial page, published online on Tuesday, endorsing the Build BU slate.
The violations resulted in a 6-0 SEC vote to “enjoin Ellis and other members of the Union executive board from campaigning for the Build BU slate,” according to the SEC site.
“The SEC wishes to foster a friendly and competitive environment for student elections,” according to the statement. “While we regret the need to resort to such drastic measures, we assert that this restriction on the Union executive board’s ability to campaign is necessary to maintain a civil and fair election.”
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A great example of the piss-poor job the SEC has been doing this year: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Boston-University-Student-Elections/188412007863805
The campaign period is almost through, and they have a mere 27 “like” the page. At the kick-off, it was in the single digits.
Let them keep writing pretentious letters while they have YET handle the most basic tasks such as promoting the elections and removing the Rhett Offensive from the slates page.
I’m very confused how this isn’t a violation of the Union’s free speech.
‘…enjoin Daniel Ellis and the other members of the Union executive board from campaigning for the BuildBU slate, as defined in sections 1.2.04 and 3.4.13 of the Code’
To disallow an entire group from campaigning for specific slate, let alone a group that probably knows the best about the election, is a horribly misguided.
WOW, could the SEC be any more blatantly biased?
1. What does the number of “likes” on their FB page have to do with anything at all? I agree that the Rhett Offensive should’ve been removed from their website, but that doesn’t make them irrelevant as an organization that oversees the elections.
2. Regardless of whether you think it’s in violation of the Union’s free speech, the rule is in the rule book. In my opinion, the Union should be the group that understands these rules more than anyone other than the SEC itself. It’s the Union’s elections, after all. If you have an issue with it, talk to the SEC and see if they can change it for later elections.
3. I don’t believe that the SEC is biased. It’s their job to send these letters, however pretentious they may seem, to the slates when some rules are violated. They’ve sent them to both Build BU today and the Rhettvolution (the slate I support) a couple weeks ago when there were some issues with our campaign. So far, no slate has been kicked out based on what the SEC has ruled, and both slates have worked to fix these violations as soon as possible.
First of all, this is not a violation of anyone’s free speech. Take a constitutional law class and you’ll learn that the first amendment only protects your free speech from government infringement (the government can’t say don’t talk about it, but if your professor (at a private university) or the SEC says it, there’s no constitutional protection).
The SEC is also not biased; they are responding to a real concern that the Student Union is biased. As a neutral organization, they are working to enforce the neutrality of another organization that SHOULD maintain itself as neutral. As the organization working with and on behalf of all students, the Student Union should be working on the last projects of the year and not siding with any one slate (regardless of knowledge or working relationships with either). It was also in response to the blatant misuse of official Union resources (twitter and facebook) to promote one slate while denigrating another. The SEC spoke to the Union after the initial concerns (see the Union blog post apologizing for abusing their resources), but the BuildBU endorsements page lists Union titles (not just personal endorsements) and Dan Ellis’ opinion piece concluded with his title. I personally don’t care which slate they said what about, but as the Student Union, they should support all students and focus their energy on their current projects, not their potential successors.
Members of Union took offense to not being contacted for their self-reported expertise. (I witnessed the questions and responses that led to the overreactions at the debate, which was woefully under-reported.) A hit to a personal or professional ego does not justify strings of biased or inappropriate tweets or retweets from official twitter pages (nor on facebook pages). Thanks to the SEC for recognizing this!
i just got an unsolicited email urging me to vote for buildbu, and when i asked why they had emailed me they said that they didn’t know why the other slates had not “reached out” to me. as if they didn’t get my email address from other sources. I think buildBU has gone too far in its promotion