Student Judiciary heard the discrimination case Sophia Alzaidi, a former Student Services Finance Committee member, brought against the Nominations Board when she was not selected to be on the committee this session.
Days following the start of the 25th Student Council session, Alzaidi announced her plans to file a complaint, believing the board conducted interviews and made decisions without any standing rules and procedures, which would make their recommendations subjective and invalid.
“It appears that there was picking and choosing between which parts of the constitution that Chair Fearing wanted to follow, and he chose to follow the part that allowed him to make illegitimate appointments to SSFC,” Alzaidi said.
Alzadi stated that she made it clear during her interview that she desired a body of diverse representatives and that they felt welcomed by the committee.
“One my main goals would be to ensure that marginalized general student-funded organizations on campus feel well-represented on the committee and that they feel comfortable coming to a woman or a gay person or a person of color,” Alzaidi said.
The board is officially required to have their nominees by the second meeting, meaning that there is a period of time between the first two meetings where the board operates without approved standing rules, according to Nominations Board Chair Adam Fearing.
“There was no such rules for the Nominations Board selection process, thus implying that there was no way Student Council could have voted on the nonexistent rules, which tarnishes the integrity of the nominations made by the Nominations Board,” Alzaidi said.
On the night of his appointment as the board’s chair, Fearing was given transition documents, including the nomination criteria for appointing positions to the committees.
“There is no legal substance to those transition documents, and they should not be given any legitimacy,” Alzaidi said.
Fearing said that he “dug through archives” to find existing standing rules, which was first mentioned in the 19th session.
Alzaidi noted that Fearing could have come to the first student council meeting “with proper standing rules and procedures already drafted up.” Fearing and his General Counsel Nathan Eichten agreed that it would be nearly “impossible” to have the standing rules and procedures completed in a day.
The day following the first Student Council meeting, he started conducting 50 interviews, which he had two days to complete.
“It would have simply taken to long to read and rank every application,” Fearing said.
Each of the interviews were recorded and shared will all members of the board via Google Drive. Additionally, nearly all the interviews were conducted with at least one other person in the room, including Rep. Jared Lang.
“As far as I can recall, there was no mention of the respondent’s name in any negative or any connotation that would be anything but purely professional,” Lang said. “I think that nothing nefarious occurred, and the decision made by the nominations board was the correct one.”
Fearing stated that he did not want to develop a bad relationship with Alzaidi and that this case does not bar her from reapplying in the future.
“I harbor no ill will against the petitioner, and, whatever the outcome of this hearing is, I would encourage her to reapply for a possible opening in SSFC, should one open,” Fearing said.
Student Judiciary will reach a verdict by Oct. 15.
