The Student Government Association's (SGA) Constitutional Council reversed the Residence Hall Association's (RHA) decision to disqualify RHA Vice President of Programming and College sophomore Jessica Simon from the RHA presidential race following an appeal Simon made against the RHA Elections Board. Simon has therefore been named RHA president.
This decision marks the fourth time a candidate was named RHA president and the second time Simon was named to the position in the last three weeks. Simon was disqualified by the RHA Elections Board after the second general election for sending out emails that the Board ruled violated the RHA elections code. RHA Publicity Chair and College sophomore Akshay Goswami was also disqualified following a challenge Simon made against his campaign.
RHA Volunteer Chair Kadean Maddix was then announced the winner by default April 15. He held the position for five days.
"I am not mad at [Simon] nor am I mad at [Goswani]," Maddix said. "I think that Jessica made her decision. She is her own individual and in my opinion, I just want to see what is best for RHA, and I let her know that her decision, whatever it may be, should be in the right for the organization and not some exterior motive."
The SGA Constitutional Council reversed the RHA Election Board's decision because they found that Simon "used Microsoft Office 365 in a parallel way to Learnlink in her campaign for Residence Hall Association (RHA) president," according to the SGA ruling, obtained by the Wheel.
The SGA Constitutional Council therefore conclude, "Simon's use of the lists of residents provided to her by RHA was substantially similar to the allowed activity of posting to LearnLink conferences with the permission of the conference controller." Therefore, the SGA constitutional Council determined that Simon would once again be named RHA president.
RHA – like all subsidiary bodies such Student Programming Counci, Indian Cultural Exchange and Emory Hillel – is obligated to follow the Constitutional Council's ruling, as it is the supreme judicial entity of all charted student organizations, according to Kara Maynard, the chief justice of the SGA Constitutional Council and Goizetta Business School junior.
Following the announcement of SGA's decision, Goswami said in an interview with the Wheel that he believes Simon's personal connections with individuals on the SGA Constitutional Council have made the decision unethical.
"She did whatever she could to get the position," Goswami said. "It seemed she was doing it for herself rather for RHA, and the way she went about doing it was unethical because the people who made the final decisions were her friends."
Simon said she does not believe that she had any personal connections with the SGA Constitutional Council and that she does not understand why Goswami would make these assumptions.
"I was unaware of any close ties I could have had," Simon said. "I'm not the kind of person ever to do something like that."
Simon said that moving forward from an election process like this is going be difficult for both her and RHA.
"It is what it is," Simon said. "Obviously an objective of my presidency will be rebuilding my reputation on campus, and that's fine with me."
"It's kind of interesting because by the end, all of the candidates have had the experience of learning what it is like to win and then lose ... I think all of us got shaken up throughout the whole process," Simon said.
Maddix said that during his five-day presidency, he had begun to organize and interview his executive board in preparation for the work ahead. Maddix added that he was shocked and a bit disappointed by SGA's decision.
–By Dustin Slade
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