To our readers,
Each year, The Emory Wheel’s Editorial Board endorses student government candidates. As with any article, these endorsements go through four rounds of edits to make sure we can comfortably stand behind everything we publish. An earlier draft of the SGA presidential candidate endorsement article included allegations that candidate Abigail Dubinski (25B) had actively suppressed student voices and withheld resources from students in her role as SGA vice president. A portion of this earlier draft, including these allegations, was posted on the anonymous social media site Fizz on Feb. 27.
The published article did not include these claims against Dubinski, as we, the Wheel’s editors-in-chief, felt we did not have enough information to corroborate these allegations as of publication time. Under any circumstance, the Wheel is committed to ensuring that our coverage is fair, accurate and trustworthy. We have a high standard for substantiating claims. To corroborate allegations, the Wheel requires documented evidence or multiple sources who can attest to the same claim. Additionally, it is the Wheel’s standard to allow individuals or groups to respond to allegations that are made against them.
The article needed to be published before noon on Feb. 27, when the student government elections commenced. As of publication time, the Editorial Board was not able to corroborate the claims made against Dubinski — which is our standard. Due to the Wheel not having documented evidence regarding the allegations against Dubinski and Dubinski not having the ability to directly respond to the claims against her, the editors-in-chief omitted the explicit references to these claims against Dubinski.
Additionally, we would like to address a factual inaccuracy in the Editorial Board’s SGA presidential endorsement. In the article, the Board advised that Dubinski and her opponent, Jayden Davis (25B), issue statements explicitly addressing their stance on the University’s open expression policy and the on-campus political division related to the Israel-Palestine conflict and the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center. Today, SGA’s Chair of the Elections Board Luxe Langmade (22Ox, 24C) informed us that candidates are not able to issue additional campaign statements or revise their platforms at this point in the election process, as all such statements had to have been approved by the Elections Board before voting commenced. We published the article less than 20 minutes before the voting period began, making this an impossible request of the candidates. Editors involved in reviewing the piece were not aware of this rule. Therefore the Editorial Board’s opinion has been updated to reflect this new information.
We regret this oversight in SGA’s elections code, and we have issued a correction. We do not currently know who posted the draft on Fizz, but we are actively working to address this issue internally. Please reach out to emorywheelexec@gmail.com with any questions or concerns.
Sincerely,
Sarah Davis & Matthew Chupack
