With her extensive experience in leadership within and beyond the Emory University ecosystem, voters should feel assured that Maahi Sethi (27C) is the best choice for Student Government Association (SGA) vice president.
Sethi has spent this past year serving as director of SGA’s First Year Council, leading a group of first-year students who consult and advise on SGA policy. Along with this role, she sits on SGA’s ad hoc open expression committee, a group organized after the protests of April 2024 with the intention of promoting free speech and open expression rights on campus. Previously, she was a member of the First Year Council and Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging Committee. These experiences highlight Sethi’s valuable relationships with current SGA members as well as her continued commitment to diversity and inclusion on campus — this background makes her an ideal candidate for SGA vice president.
One of the core pillars of Sethi’s joint platform with SGA presidential candidate Seth Weinfield (27C), second-year SGA and College Council legislator, is disability advocacy for Emory students. To better promote accessibility at Emory, Sethi hopes to continue working to establish a disability identity space in Cox Hall and wants to better standardize accommodations for students with disabilities across the University. Though The Emory Wheel’s Editorial Board is not endorsing Weinfield, we commend his and Sethi’s work toward enhancing accessibility.
In addition to admiring her disability advocacy, the Board appreciates Sethi’s interest in reforming the Respect for Open Expression Policy. Every SGA member, especially its leaders, should be devoted to comprehending this policy and advocating for open expression rights on behalf of students — and Sethi has expressed a commitment to both of these. In her platform, she explained her role in distributing a campus-wide survey to solicit feedback from students on the open expression policy last October. She also wants to establish an SGA subcommittee on open expression that any student can join and, unlike SGA’s current committee, does not limit participation to elected representatives or administrators.
Additionally, in her interview with the Editorial Board, Sethi passionately condemned University President Gregory Fenves’ unilaterally adopted addendum to the University’s open expression policy in August 2024. She also clearly understood and wholly supported the recent revisions and recommendations from the University Senate regarding the same policy. Given Sethi’s expertise with the policy and her past attempts to engage with the student body to solicit democratic reform, we have confidence that she will be an effective liaison between students and the Emory administration.
In both the Wheel Debates and her interview, Sethi explained her plans to shift SGA’s communication strategy from reactive to “proactive,” ensuring students are informed of and able to contribute to policy changes before they are implemented.
While the Board is proud to endorse Sethi, we also recognize that her candidacy has flaws. Despite her strength in student governance and policy-making, we question her ability to engage students who aren’t involved in SGA. When asked during her interview how she would connect with students outside the SGA bubble, she struggled to provide actionable plans. Similarly, while she expressed interest in strengthening ties between Oxford College and the Atlanta campus, her policy was limited to weekly check-ins with the Oxford SGA (OxSGA) president, bringing Atlanta clubs to involvement fairs, and vague references to expanding resource accessibility. We implore Sethi to develop more meaningful and proactive policies to address Oxford student needs beyond surface-level contact.
Sethi’s opponent, Zoe Grotjan (24Ox, 26B), has experience as the Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) Council SGA representative, a BBA Council member and the former vice president of finance for OxSGA. Grotjan’s platform highlights improving experience shuttles for Oxford students and reforming Title IX, which sets her apart from Sethi’s sparse platform for Oxford and sexual assault prevention advocacy. However, aside from these positives, Grotjan falls short. Grotjan’s platform advocates for adding two new student seats with voting power to the Emory Board of Trustees, but when pressed about the feasibility of this in her interview, Grotjan lacked a clear action plan — stark contrast to Sethi’s actionable ideas, informed by her previous student government experience.
The Editorial Board is proud to endorse Sethi and looks forward to seeing what change she brings to SGA’s governance, policy and transparency with students.
Ilka Tona , Mira Krichavsky and Niki Rajani recused themselves due to a conflict of interest with Sethi and were not involved in writing or editing this opinion. Managing Editor Ellie Fivas recused herself from editing sections of this opinion referencing Grotjan due to a conflict of interest with her.
The above editorial represents the majority opinion of The Emory Wheel’s Editorial Board. The Editorial Board is composed of Editorial Board Editor Marc Goedemans, Editorial Board Asst. Editor Carly Aikens, Opinion Asst. Editor Ethan Jacobs, Arts & Life Asst. Editor Hunter Buchheit, Allie Guo, Carson Kindred, Mira Krichavsky, Eliana Liporace, Niki Rajani, Josh Rosenblut, Ilka Tona and Crystal Zhang.
