The 47th Legislature of the Student Government Association (SGA) approved five members to the Executive Board on Monday evening.
The legislature appointed College junior Bart Qian and College sophomore Ted Guio as co-chiefs of staff, College sophomore Christopher Weeden as attorney general, College junior Calvin Lee as vice president of finance and College freshman Jon Darby as vice president of communications.
The decision to appoint co-chiefs of staff to the Executive Board, which has not been done since the 36th Legislature, provoked contentious discussion among former and current SGA members.
Former SGA Student Life Chair and College sophomore Calvin Li encouraged the legislature not to approve Guio’s appointment due to some comments made by Guio himself and by Student Programming Council (SPC) President and College senior Will Levinson on their Facebook pages.
Both comments implied that Guio had been guaranteed the chief of staff position in the event that he lost the vice presidential election.
Li brought in screenshots of Facebook posts as proof for the legislature.
One of the posts that Li brought to the meeting was posted on Facebook by Levinson.
In the post in question, Levinson endorsed SGA Vice President and College junior Ye Ji Kim, claiming that it did not matter if Guio lost, because he would be appointed chief of staff anyway.
In response to Li’s allegations that he had been promised the position before the election, Guio said, “Hell yeah, that’s the way we roll.” Guio later added that the comment was sarcastic.
Li also alleged that Guio had posted a response to an inquiry about his results in the vice presidential race which, according to Li, implied that Guio believed he was guaranteed the position of chief of staff even if he was not elected SGA vice president.
Newly-elected SGA President and College junior Raj Patel responded to the accusations of favoritism.
“It was something [Levinson] assumed from my working relationship with [Guio], which developed into a friendship,” Patel said.
Members of the legislature discussed whether or not it is ethical for the SGA president to appoint his or her friends to the executive board.
Legislators like Representative-at-Large and College freshman Raj Tilwa said he wanted Guio to apologize for his Facebook comments.
Others voiced their support for Guio’s appointment.
“Is it ethically wrong to look at a bunch of qualified candidates and pick the one that’s your friend?” Laney Graduate School Representative Laura Mariani asked. “I honestly think it’s fine.”
Some legislators asked Guio to explain the Facebook comments.
“It was a position that I was going to get because I wanted to be involved,” he said, explaining why it may have been perceived that he thought he was guaranteed the position.
Li said he was also concerned that there was no need for two chiefs of staff.
The Governance Committee voted in support of the co-chiefs of staff, stating that both candidates were qualified for the position.
Kim and Patel also defended the dual appointments, explaining that each candidate had a separate sphere of influence on campus – Guio’s being the Oxford constituency and Qian’s being international students.
Patel also explained that next year’s co-chiefs of staff will have an expanded role because SGA has plans to revise the monetary policy along with the Elections Board, both of which will be University-wide modifications.
Eventually, the topic of discussion returned to the ethics of Guio’s appointment, at which point legislators expressed frustration at the length of the discussion.
“This is starting to feel like ‘gotcha’ politics,” Graduate Goizueta Business School Representative David Kaplan said.
The hour-long vetting process concluded with the legislature affirming that Guio and Qian were both qualified for the position.
The legislature voted 17-0-5 to approve the two chiefs of staff in taking office.
– By Rupsha Basu
Correction (4/17 at 1:50 p.m.): The original version of the story incorrectly referred to Calvin Lee as Calvin Li. This has been changed in the version of the story above.
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This continues to show that this SGA administration continues their blatant disregard of the rules. First the presidential election where Raj broke the rules and was assessed a meager 20 hours of community service, now guaranteeing positions to people he essentially ran on a ticket with. Can’t wait to see how many bad headlines this administration can make this year – they might set a record.
Ted didn’t go to Oxford…. He’s been vOTED in here on main twice. Im not sure how…
Great reporting, Rupsha! I noticed you typing away during the discussion and I think you captured it well.
I wanted to expand on my comments that you quoted above, since I know it’s not possible to transcribe everything and I’m a little worried people reading this excerpt may think I’m taking a bold, pro-cronyism stance. In reality, my point is this: The crux of the discussion of ethics seemed to be, is it wrong to appoint Ted to an executive position because of his pre-existing relationship with SGA President Raj Patel? Questions of unethical behavior came up because a few people felt that Ted’s appointment was too predictable, given his friendship with Raj. But it was also predictable because of his experience serving on SGA as a very involved legislator and as chair of the Governance committee. Surely his SGA experience can’t be held against him, so the question becomes, are we going to block the appointment of a qualified candidate because some people (not particularly politically neutral people, I would add) are saying he got the job because of his friend? VP Ye Ji Kim, who had no previous relationship with Ted, made sure to point out that she agreed with the appointment and felt he was qualified for the job. I thought that his friendly relationship with Raj was not something that should be held against him, and clearly the majority of the Legislature felt the same way.
That said, I do think it’s important for the student body to have confidence in their SGA, so I am glad that we had the opportunity to discuss these issues during our session and would welcome input from our constituents.
Why’s this a news story? We knew Raj was going to appoint Ted regardless of what happened, if the posters all over campus didn’t tip you off.
It’s Calvin Lee, not Li. Should clear it up to avoid the confusion between the two individuals.
What an absolute joke, I can’t wait until all this year’s student government “leaders” move on and we can elect some ethical candidates.