The Associated Student Body Senate filled its 13 open seats Tuesday, after comments from a current senator roused controversy during voting hours.
Newly elected 2016 ASB Senators include Allen Coon, Anderson Brucie Helton, Anna-Lauren Hale, Case Knight, Coco McDonnell, Crawford Moore, Dylan Wood, Merritt Belk, Peyton Belk, Reagan Moody, Sara Butts, Taylor Story and Zoe Windham.
Current ASB Sen. Tim Pickett sent a message Tuesday morning via the GroupMe app, endorsing specific candidates and encouraging voters to “keep the NAACP and flaming libs out of office.”
Ten of the 13 senators elected Tuesday night were on Pickett’s list.
Following the spread of a screenshot of Pickett’s message via social media, the ASB Elections Commission released a statement stressing the importance of integrity and civility during the election process.
“The Elections Commission asserts that these comments do not reflect the mission statement of our Associated Student Body, which calls for us to serve selflessly and to represent justly the student body, prioritizing student’s interest and needs above personal ambition and prejudice,” the statement read. “While there were no campaign rules violated, we will continue to monitor and further explore what has occurred in order to maintain the spirit of the campaign and the integrity of our political process in the Associated Student Body.”
The statement encouraged students to not actively alienate different student voices in this process and to vote for the candidates they believe will work to better the university.
ASB President Austin Powell said Pickett’s act of campaigning via the GroupMe app was not the issue, but the content of the campaign message was.
“The context of not working together as students to represent other students and saying that we needed a political ideology more over another, that’s the issue we had,” Powell said. “The whole job of someone in a student government position is to say ‘I’m representing all students,’ not a political ideology. That’s what goes against our beliefs as an organization.”
Sen. Allen Coon said he is excited to again serve the students in the community, but is disappointed that there were no students of color that were voted into senate during this round of elections.
“I think that’s a sign that we need to work on outreach to minority communities and help those communities really reach their message to other students,” Coon said. “There’s a real disconnect between student populations and I think we really need to have an engagement of ideas.”
Coon said the language of Pickett’s message was implicitly racist and explicitly homophobic.
“It’s such a dangerous precedent when we have students targeting other groups and other students to ensure that their voices aren’t heard on this campus,” Coon said. “It’s important that we have a diversity of ideas, and I welcome all perspectives and opinions, but when you try to ensure that other voices aren’t heard, I think that’s a problem.”
Coon said there needs to be a discussion about what the message meant and how it violated the integrity of the Creed.
“It’s disappointing to see that kind of rhetoric and [to see] current student senators that aren’t living by our Creed,” Coon said. “But I still look forward to working with my fellow senators and to making ASB and our campus a much more inclusive place. We need to ensure that kind of behavior isn’t tolerated in our community again.”
Powell said ASB will look for the leadership of the senators to make sure things like this don’t happen again.
“The whole reason we have the governing document is to say, ‘This is what you should do as an ASB representative, and this is what you shouldn’t’,” he said. “To be able to take that apart and say, ‘These are the issues that we are facing with this document, how can we make it better?’”
Here are the senators who were elected on Tuesday, Sept. 13:
Terrius Harris
Elizabeth Romary
Danielle Foster
Soloman Kerby
Quinn McKemey
Hallie Gillam
Alex Thompson
Jordan Coopwood
Drew Perry
Zach DiGregorio
Evan Dean
Emily Hoffman
Darby Todd
Tim Pickett
Grant Phillips
Megan Woods
Zac Herring
Megan Krynen
Abby Bruce
Allison Hanby
Elam Miller
Morgan Tucker
Hunter Berry
Katelynn Roberts
Henry McDavid
Ben Lilly
Natalie Williams
William Mercier
Andrew Soper
Grant Lamb
Court Satterfield
Madison Roberts
Walker Abel
Claire Ammentorp
Sammy Brown
