LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Being an associate justice for the Monroe Park Campus
Student Government Association, I personally would
like to respond to the comments being made by several
individuals against the SGA. My response is mainly based
on the fact that there are some rather nasty allegations
being passed through The CT by people with seriously
inaccurate information.

Let me begin by correcting Josh Ronk’s statement
published in The CT after he filed a grievance when
he lost the election after running for vice president on
candidate Steven Latimer’s ticket. When the SGA judicial
board unanimously voted against Ronk, he made the
following statement to The CT, which was published
on April 7.

“It clearly says in the bylaws that you are responsible
for yourself as well as those who support you,” Ronk said.
“If the SGA’s going to make rules, they should follow
them . I know we want to bring up voter turnout, but
this is not the way to do it.” Mr. Ronk is speaking of his
claim that Muhammad-ticket supporters were harassing
and intimidating voters, not the candidates themselves.

This is not listed in either the election bylaws or in the
bylaws of the SGA constitution itself. I know, because
I help approve the bylaws every year, have read them
at least a hundred times and would assume that Ronk,
running as executive director, would have an accurate
copy himself.

Ronk goes on in a letter to the editor April 17: “for
the past two years a president has been elected after a
direct breach of election bylaws and these breaches were
found to be okay by our justices.”

First of all, no one on the Muhammad ticket violated
any elections bylaws. Steven Latimer himself even stated in
an earlier article (April 13) that everyone was responsible
for following University Rules and Procedures when it
came to not intimidating or harassing people but stated
that it was “supporters” of the Muhammad ticket, not
the candidates themselves who allegedly were harassing
students to vote. This in no way was perpetrated by anyone
on the Muhammad ticket, so if this were the feeling of
Ronk and Latimer – that these students were being
harassed or intimidated – they should both be
familiar enough with university policy to know this
would be an item for the University Hearing Board
to decide and should have filed complaints against
the students who were committing the offenses
rather than the ticket he was running against.
Although harassment and intimidation certainly
are forbidden by VCU students, the students are
responsible for their own actions and should be
punished as such. Muhammad’s ticket should not
be held responsible for others’ actions, and to do so
would be the same as convicting someone of a crime
when they weren’t even at the crime scene.

Ronk goes on in the April 17 article to state
that “both senate and executive branch candidates
harassed and intimidated voters into voting for a
particular person.” This directly contradicts not only
his previous statements that the Muhammad ticket
should be responsible for its supporters, because
it was the supporters and not the candidates who
were allegedly “harassing” students, but also goes
against the grievance he filed when he stated the
Muhammad ticket was to be responsible for its
supporters. So which is it? Does Ronk want us
to believe it was the candidates, in which case
his grievance against the Muhammad ticket was
groundless anyway, since it was worded against his
supporters, or will he have us believe it was the
supporters, in which case the statement he made
to The CT about it being candidates themselves
was inaccurate?

This is the problem the SGA has been having.
It is not the members, who do work very had for
students, but rather those who seek to destroy it
because they simply didn’t get their way. The SGA
takes on a negative light because negative articles
against the SGA are published on a constant basis,
while those supporting it are mentioned rarely
and certainly not on the front page. The constant
barrage of degrading comments that have been
thrown at the SGA lately have gotten out of hand,
and some truth needs to come to light. We are
not in this for ourselves. We all have a love for
this school and work very hard to make students’
voices heard.

The SGA is dedicated fully to the student body
and encourages the student body to become
involved in any way it can. You do not have to
be an elected member to participate in the SGA,
and all the information you could possibly want
to obtain about the SGA is either posted on the
Web site (www.vcusga.com) or can be obtained by
making a trip to the SGA office or speaking to one
of your elected officials. We sponsor many events
and socials where students can interact with SGA
members one on one and can learn the internal
workings of the SGA.

The comments that have been made against the
SGA are exactly the reason that students do not
want to become involved. As with most media,
there is no good side to anything anymore. I realize
that, by human nature, drama sells, but considering
that the paper is partially paid for by student
funds derived from student-activity fees, can we
possibly post some positive information about the
SGA once in awhile, such as ventures it is involved
in, who is running for office and what events are
being held? Or at the very least, can we narrow
down the attacks to accurate information instead
of blatantly false statements? And preferably not on
the back page for once? Students need and deserve
to know what the people they elected are doing for
them, and The CT is the students’ newspaper, so
it should be working harder to make sure students
have accurate information about their student
government in the future.

Sincerely,

Kadie Chandler