Wednesday afternoon, juniors Chris Clemens, Kyle McGuire, Brandon Eichmeier and Jared Gilbert were shut out from speaking to the student senators of this campus.
The students, henceforth known as Team Clemens, were looking to throw their collective hat into the ring to add competition to this year's Student Government Association presidential slate election. As it stands now, Steve Geraci's Team US faces no competition and will accept the presidential duties in March by default, without any student vote whatsoever.
Unfortunetly for students, that lack of competition is here to stay. The 42-member Student Senate voted 15-12 against giving their constituents a chance to speak -- a shameful move for the Senate, at best.
Fifteen senators abstained from voting, which in itself shows nothing more than a lack of thought or concern for the issue. The only excuse for senators to abstain from this sort of unprecedented vote is because of a personal conflict of interest, such as being a member of the opposing slate.
As it turns out, those very students who were in the midst of such conflicted interest happened to be amongst the 15 who voted against letting Team Clemens speak.
It's discouraging to think that the future SGA president was not willing to hear his own peers express their concern and criticism, even if it involved Geraci himself.
This does not necessarily mean that Team Clemens should have been allowed to officially enter the race. Although it was a good effort on the students' part, they were still nearly two weeks late and 100 signatures short of the required minimum.
However, Student Senate, whose sole goal is to properly represent the BSU's student body, still had an obligation to the four students to at least hear them out.
They did not fulfill that obligation, and in doing so, they have failed the students of this university.
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