Every year for almost a century, the members of The Emory Wheel have elected a new editor-in-chief (EIC), and the 2021 election will occur in less than two weeks. The Wheel’s constitution describes voting procedures in detail, but its ambiguous attribution of the right to do so is less clear. The current document states that only active editors, current members of the business team and “any other member of The Emory Wheel who had achieved staff status” may cast ballots in its annual elections. That seems clear enough, but as the constitution’s definition of “staff status” reveals, the reality is infuriatingly vague.
On Tuesday, former editors Shreya Pabbaraju (21C) and Joel Lerner (20Ox, 22C) learned that they were excluded from the list of eligible voters since they are not active editors and haven’t met the staff requirements. Pabbaraju and Lerner had little recourse because the Wheel’s constitution, which was last updated over two years ago, leaves the conditions under which a student can vote extraordinarily vague in some cases and exclusionary in others.
For that reason, the Wheel’s editor-in-chief should raise an amendment to the Board of Editors that clarifies the loose qualifications to become a staff writer and guarantees former editors, members of the Editorial Board and others the right to vote.
Right now, becoming a staff member at the Wheel “typically require[s] five published submissions to the paper within a single semester.” The key word there is “typically.” Because of that qualification and the fact that “the requirements [to earn staff status] can be waived by the editor-in-chief,” the de facto criteria that students must meet to vote have fluctuated over the years. Most recently, the norm has been to require 10 published pieces during the most recent academic year, meaning that students who are not editors or business team members must publish 10 articles every academic year to keep their positions.
Consequently, becoming a staff member and, thus, eligible to vote requires new members to produce 10 articles in little more than one semester, since the paper’s voter rolls become final in early February. As onerous as it is, even that standard has been applied only sporadically. The unspecified language of what constitutes “staff” has allowed for voting procedures to differ from year to year, meaning the voting list is largely at the discretion of the editor-in-chief.
That rule was the ground on which Pabbaraju and Lerner were initially denied the right to vote in the upcoming election: having resigned their leadership positions last year, neither had produced five articles in the past semester. While their outcry eventually allowed them to regain their voting privileges, they should never have lost them in the first place. Given the immense time they’ve put into the Wheel, as editorship roles require around 15 to 30 hours per week, it is egregious that the constitution’s vague language left them voiceless in regard to the next election. The constitution’s failure to standardize the process of earning and maintaining staff status permits subjective, inequitable and unethical assignments of voting rights from year to year. It’s clear the constitution needs fixing, and now.
The Constitution’s vague wording prevents many dedicated individuals from having a say in their own organization. Our list of eligible voters for the Opinion section, for instance, included editors, members of the Editorial Board and one columnist. Not one person became staff by producing 10 articles in two consecutive semesters alone. The Wheel cannot claim to represent the student body at large and simultaneously set standards where sections such as Opinion do not have a single staff writer represented in the eligible voting list.
Even our voting rights, as members of the Editorial Board, are not protected by the constitution. The Wheel’s Editorial Board holds an important role: we author the paper’s official stance on topical issues such as local and national politics. Doing so requires meeting twice a week and producing two editorials per week. Given that staff status is awarded to individuals who typically produce five pieces per semester for two consecutive semesters, we have far surpassed the requirement imposed on other staff members, but the constitution doesn’t directly grant us voting eligibility. We meet with the EIC twice a week, and the editors among us do so four times — if anyone deserves a say in who that person is, we do.
So how should the Wheel fix these gross missteps? First, we must amend Section 4, Article II of the constitution to establish the eligibility of all current and former editors to vote in the EIC election as long as they remain students enrolled at Emory University. This would ensure that editors who leave their positions but have spent immense time contributing to the Wheel’s growth, like Lerner and Pabbaraju, will still be able to use their institutional knowledge to help the Wheel make well-informed electoral decisions. In a similar vein, the Wheel needs a constitutional amendment stating in unequivocal terms that all columnists, members of the Editorial Board, business personnel and staff members can vote for their next EIC.
The Wheel’s editors must also, at long last, clarify the circumstances under which students can become staff members. The new constitution should clearly state that any photographer, writer, web designer or illustrator should become a full staff member after producing five published pieces in one semester. They would then maintain that status by publishing five more works in their second semester, after which the minimum requirement should fall to one piece per semester. Not only would that system guarantee all Wheel stakeholders a voice in the paper’s leadership, but it would also ensure that writers’ experiences do not lose their impact once they stop writing as often.
To amend the Wheel’s constitution, two thirds of the current Board of Editors must agree upon and approve a proposed change. We call on our current Editor-In-Chief Madison Bober (20C) or candidate Isaiah Poritz (22C), as the Wheel’s most influential leaders, to bring an amendment to the table to rectify these clear inadequacies in our constitution. The right decision here is clear: as soon as possible, the Wheel must expand and standardize voting rights to ensure that future generations can make their voices heard and build the free, fair and equitable organization they need.
The Wheel prides itself as a champion of transparency and democracy. Now, we say this: prove it.
The above editorial represents the majority opinion of the Wheel’s Editorial Board. The Editorial Board is composed of Sahar Al-Gazzali, Brammhi Balarajan, Viviana Barreto, Rachel Broun, Jake Busch, Sara Khan, Sophia Ling, Martin Shane Li, Demetrios Mammas, Meredith McKelvey, Sara Perez, Ben Thomas, Leah Woldai, Lynnea Zhang and Yun Zhu.
