The Constitution Court dismissed all charges against ASUO President Emma Kallaway in a ruling issued Monday.
The grievance, filed Aug. 3, looked to remove Kallaway from office and contained five allegations: that Kallaway had misled the student body, misused incidental fees, used unfair hiring practices, did not check her e-mail and submitted a memo late.
Senior Michelle Haley, who filed the grievance, ran against Kallaway for president in the 2009 election for ASUO president.
Kallaway called the grievance a “malicious attempt to remove Respondent after no wrongdoing, most likely as a result of Respondent defeating Petitioner in the 2009 ASUO General Election” in her response.
The court chose to forego a hearing on Oct. 9, the Friday following the confirmation of three of its five members.
The court dismissed two of the allegations with prejudice, meaning the court did not believe they were offenses at all — the accusations connected to her hiring Chief-of-Staff Ella Barrett and talking to former ASUO President Jared Axelrod while on a student-funded trip in Washington, D.C.
Chief Justice Eric Blaine criticized those two allegations.
“I think that there was a certain impatience with some of the allegations, number four and number five, because we considered the gravity of the allegations very serious,” Blaine said. “We considered the support for the petition and the evidence on the allegation itself, as we say, completely without merit.”
The court offered Haley the chance to offer more evidence on the other three counts, which it called “potentially meritorious” in its published opinion. Those allegations were related to her responsiveness to e-mails and to a document outlining her personal criteria for her position. The court deemed Haley’s evidence insufficient and encouraged her to submit more.
Haley wrote in an e-mail that she wanted to submit more evidence but that “(her) school work comes first.”
“I did not expect Con. Court to remove President Kallaway from office,” Haley wrote.
Kallaway applauded the decision in a statement issued in response and issued a challenge to Haley.
“If Ms. Haley would like to continue pushing this issue, I only hope that she does so as quickly as possible so that we can all return to the real work of the ASUO,” she wrote in the statement.
Many in the ASUO applauded the results of the court’s deliberations. ASUO Senate President Nick Gower said the grievance had been ill-advised, even though he was the first to criticize Kallaway for allegedly turning in the criteria document late, the source of two of the grievance’s counts.
“I think the grievance needlessly distracted from a lot of the events, a lot of the important issues we have to discuss and get done,” Gower said. “But it’s a grievance that the Con. Court had to look at the merits of. They ruled on their decision and I support their decision.”
News editor Alex Tomchak Scott contributed to this article.
Allegations
- Kallaway failed to “submit memo outlining criteria for fulfillment of duties within one month.” Dismissed
- “Kallaway intentionally mislead student body.” Dismissed
- Kallaway failed to “perform basic duties: neglecting ASUO emails.” Dismissed
- “Kallaway abused incidental fee dollars to prepare for presidential campaign in Washington, D.C.” Dismissed, with prejudice*
- Kallaway failed “to perform fair hiring practices when selecting friend, contributor Ella Barrett as Chief of Staff — failure to follow Affirmative Action plan.” Dismissed, with prejudice*
*Dismissed with prejudice means the court decided the charges were not offenses to begin
with and will not see new evidence.
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