Boston University Student Government’s Judicial Commission presented official claims and results of the investigation into members of the Executive Board on Monday night. In a private meeting, the Senate then unanimously voted to have a trial for the E-board members in question next week.
The trial will allow Kimberly Barzola, vice president of finance, and Marwa Sayed, vice president of internal affairs, to defend themselves against the claims made against them. The results of the investigation into Barzola and Sayed allege that they have not fulfilled their responsibilities as E-board members, failing to attend meetings and file necessary reports.
One of the judicial commissioners, Louis Vitti, a junior in the Questrom School of Business, further explained the intent behind the trial.
“The only thing we are doing this trial for is to give members of the Executive Board an opportunity to speak to members of Senate,” Vitti said. “We want them to explain their actions and why they haven’t been doing things. We are giving them the opportunity to talk to us and then the Senate will move to vote.”
According to Section V of Article I of the SG Constitution, Judicial Commission must gain the approval of 51 percent of Senate, measured through electronic vote, in order to impeach an Executive Board member. The Constitution makes no mention of a preliminary trial, such as the one the Senate voted to conduct, before an impeachment vote.
Stephen Chang, Senate chair, said that the vote to conduct the trial was unanimous.
“The senators have voted and the senators will be hearing the testimony next week,” Chang said. “We will be devoting at least 30 minutes of the meeting to testimonies and responses and we will see where that leads us.”
Asked about the claims brought before the Senate and the possibility of moving forward with an impeachment trial, 10 Buick St. Senator Clement Le Jamtel, a senior in CAS, said he saw irony in the absence of Barzola and Sayed at the meeting.
“I just find it a little ironic, that we are talking about how they are not performing their jobs or why they don’t show up to all meetings and they are not there to explain themselves,” Le Jamtel said. “I think that’s why we all moved to vote for trial so we can we can get a better understanding of the situation and then make an appropriate decision.”
After Judicial Commission presented the claims and the senators voted on the preliminary trial, the meeting continued with a presentation on the 16,000 Strong organization and the Gap Week initiative.
The Senate voted to allot $4,000 of their budget to 16,000 Strong, an organization with the mission of making BU and its surrounding areas safer for students. The $4,000 will go to funding Haze, “an autobiographical one-woman play about untested rape kits in the USA,” according to the 16,000 Strong group’s presentation.
Several senators also presented the idea of Gap Week at the meeting, which will be week in March 2016 with various events relating to the gender gap. Gap Week will unite many different student groups who work towards gender equality, according to the presentation.
Senate Communications Director Yasmin Gentry, a senior in CAS and the College of Communication, organized the planning for Gap Week. She said the event will include female BU alumnae who are working to close the gender gap.
“We wanted to make it a week-long celebration of gender equality and female empowerment, and it has gotten bigger and bigger, and we hope it will be really awesome,” Gentry said.
Mim Eiben, a sophomore in CAS and Questrom, joined Gentry in planning Gap Week. Eiben said that connecting all the different student groups on campus that are working for gender equality is the main goal of Gap Week.
“We want to tap into different factions of the student body. What we are hoping with Gap Week is that we don’t just focus on women in business or women in politics,” Eiben said. “We can [unite] student groups who focus on that specifically to get together and pursue toward their common goal, and tap into their different passions and talents for the events to talk about this issue.”
Chang, a senior in CAS, said the meeting was successful in passing important motions.
“We got a lot of progress done today,” Chang said. “We got 16,000 strong passed $4,000 today. That’s going to benefit a lot of our students. And additionally we got Gap Week to be presented to our senators. Business as usual as we wanted and we had that. It was very successful.”
