Craig Cohen: Disputing an unfortunate UA referendum

Mark Twain once remarked, "In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards." Wise words, but sometimes I feel as if Twain got it wrong; it seems as if there is something missing. Idiots may have been strike one, school boards may have been another swing and miss, but the shot out of the park came with the creation of the Undergraduate Assembly. While the UA has done a lot of great things for this campus as outlined in yesterday's The Daily Pennsylvanian, like bringing back the Penn Course Review and trying to make the finals schedule fairer, sometimes it proposes ideas that simply boggle the mind.

The UA, despite objections from within its ranks, recently put forward a referendum that would allow for closed-door sessions during the election of the executive board. This referendum was subsequently passed by the student body in elections last week. The UA now has the option of implementing this new measure. If it valued the respect of the undergraduate student body, the UA would be wise to scrap this referendum and not enforce it. It should never have been presented to the student body in the first place.

Under the current system, a public question-and-answer session is held where anyone can question the candidates for the executive positions of the UA. Once this is completed, the UA reps cast their votes in secret. The proposal would allow for a closed-door session once the public Q & A is completed. The purpose of this would be to "give people a chance to discuss the candidate honestly, without having to share their opinions publicly," according to the proposal's author, Jonathan Ozark.

There simply is no rational justification for implementing this measure. Ozark's line of reasoning makes very little sense. If I understand it correctly, he is saying that UA members do not disclose their real opinions in public for some unknown reason. When they are in contact with the general student body, they present a different face than the one they show in private.

Isn't this a bad thing? Shouldn't we encourage them to be more open rather than hide behind some veil of secrecy? Furthermore, the UA has 33 representatives. Why is it instantly assumed that people who won't confess their real opinions in the open forum will do so in front of the other 32 members?

The proposal is further justified by its author, who says, "a confidential session is necessary 'in order to avoid inadvertently hurting people.'" Apparently, we've now regressed to kindergarten where we must always be constantly concerned about hurting people's feelings. Please, grow up. The UA should be composed of people who can take criticism already. I do not want a pushover in charge of representing the entire student body.

The point of this open forum is to let the student body and the members of the UA see who is best fit for their most prestigious positions. I'm not concerned with hurting someone's feelings if they are unsuited for the post. If someone is going to be upset by a little criticism, then they have no business serving on the UA in the first place.

"As a member of many organizations who have a closed-door period, I felt it was very beneficial to selecting the best candidate for the position" opines the referendum's author in another magnificent grasp of reason. So apparently, if everyone does it, then it must be the cool thing to do. The difference here is that the UA is not just any other organization -- at least it should not be. The UA is supposed to act as the extension of the entire student body, not just some small subset of it. As such, there is no reason to, at any point in time, exclude the student body from the decision-making process of who will lead the UA.

The crowning achievement in the logic behind this referendum is the idea that "adding the new system would hopefully alleviate the 'backdoor maneuvering' that previously characterized UA executive board elections." By preventing the public from seeing the entire discussion on the merits of candidates for the UA exec board they are, by definition, increasing the potential for this "backdoor maneuvering."

What if someone who does not appear qualified to win a seat after the open forum ends up winning a prestigious post? The decision will undoubtedly lead to criticism and cynicism. Even if the process was not totally open beforehand, there is absolutely zero rationale behind making the process less transparent. All it does is lessen legitimacy and heighten suspicion.

If the UA really wants to act on behalf of the students and serve as a legitimate extension of their desires, they would best be served by including them in the decision process of their leaders. There is nothing to gain by implementing this referendum, and there is much to lose.

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