ASUO Senate Vice President Nick Schultz will not resign from the Senate, despite having announced by e-mail early Thursday morning that he would “voluntarily step down from a position of leadership at the University of Oregon.”
Schultz sent out the e-mail after arguing with Senate President Nick Gower twice during Wednesday night’s Senate meeting.
The dispute started when Schultz questioned the order in which Gower was granting senators the opportunity to speak at the meeting. Schultz asked the Senate to censure
Gower for calling on Sen. Lindsay Reichardt to speak, despite Sen. Zachary Stark-MacMillan being next on the speaker’s list during debate on a resolution concerning the
Pacifica Forum.
Gower told Schultz he could not censure him for that decision, and order quickly dissolved in the room. It was only restored when Reichardt said Stark-MacMillan should speak. Schultz then left the room.
At the end of the meeting, Schultz and ASUO Vice President Getachew Kassa asked to address the Senate, and Schultz said Gower had abused his power. He called Gower “tyrannical” and told him he should resign.
In the discussion that ensued, both Kassa and Sen. Tyler Griffin left the room angrily, and the meeting ended with Schultz again telling Gower to resign.
An hour later, Schultz sent out an e-mail apologizing for the outburst and implying that he planned to resign.
“My unprofessional behavior was both an embarrassment to myself and the ASUO Student Senate as a whole,” he wrote. “It is quite clear to me that I have become a detriment to this body and the work it is hoping to accomplish.”
On Thursday, however, Schultz said he will not resign. He said that, by saying he would “volutarily step down,” he only meant that his term in office would be ending in three months. Resigning, he said, would likely mean his Senate seat would not be filled before the upcoming ASUO election.
He did say, however, that he would sit apart from Gower in future meetings to avoid conflict. He said that he regretted calling upon Gower to resign, but that still disagreed with
his leadership.
Both Schultz and Gower said they had resolved their differences.
“I made a mistake as far as parliamentary procedure is concerned,” Gower said. “It was a mistake, not an abuse of power.”
Gower said he never expected Schultz to resign. “Knowing Sen. Schultz, I didn’t think he would resign because that wouldn’t represent his constituency very well.”
Gower said he regretted that the incident happened while many students were watching, having come to the meeting to speak against the Pacifica Forum.
“It was very embarrassing from our body, and I apologize that students had to see an internal problem explode in the way it did on all counts,” Gower said.
He said tense discussions about the Pacifica Forum in recent meetings and the emotional impact of the swastika spray-painted on the LGBTQA floor had led to the raw emotions
shown Wednesday.
[email protected]
No plan of resignation for ASUO Sen. Schultz
Daily Emerald
February 4, 2010
Ivar Vong
0
More to Discover