Student Government at University of Houston Hit With Slew of Recalls Over Claims of Transphobia
“constantly us[ing] transphobic, homophobic, and sexist comments”
The student government president, who was also recalled, refutes all the allegations. This looks like a political hit job.
Campus Reform reports:
President recalled, 17 senators suspended: Accusations of transphobia, election integrity rock student government
Students at the University of Houston voted in a Special Recall Election Oct. 26 and 27 to remove Student Government Association President Arsalan Darbin from his position.
A resolution to recall Darbin was set in motion Oct. 6 by Senator Abraham Sanchez, former president of the University of Houston College Democrats, who accused Darbin of fostering a hostile work environment.
“The resolution was very general, like I set a hostile work environment or fail to perform my duties,” Darbin told Campus Reform. “Just very general allegation[s]”.
Accusations against Darbin were supplied to the chamber via a 16 point list of grievances during a general meeting on October 6. “Fostering a hostile work environment,” “constantly us[ing] transphobic, homophobic, and sexist comments,” and budget management were all listed as concerns leading to the vote.
“President Darbin has long fostered a toxic and hostile work environment for his cabinet,” Sanchez had said, according to The Daily Cougar’s reporting. “These are microaggressions and there is no proof in writing, I’ll ask you to take them as their word.”
Darbin refuted these claims, writing that “there is absolutely no proof of the accusations made against me” in a statement.
But the special election raised concerns about fairness as 17 SGA senators were suspended after failing to comply with the Election Code’s stipulation that bars students from campaigning ahead of a special election.
Screenshots of violations were reported to the SGA Department of Justice, showing instances of senators actively campaigning for students to vote for or against the recall.
A group chat between members of the legislature also affirmed that while they were aware of the policy, it was deliberately ignored.
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Comments
So now it is okay to just throw out baseless accusations, without a need to substantiate them with evidence (“…there is no proof in writing, I’ll ask you to take them a[t]s their word”), and then apparently use the fact that they refute the accusations as evidence of further wrong-doing? Have these imbeciles ever heard of due process?
J’accuse, you… you… racist!
No… you transphobe!
Whichever.
You’re white, in any case, so… supremacist!
Iranian ancestry so probably close enough to pale for them to call him white. He’s scrubbed most of his pics, probably to reduce harassment from nutcases at school.
The best part of all this is that in the grand scheme of things, it really doesn’t matter. About all they ever decide is who gets money for a kegger.
Isn’t there a fundamental freedom speech, freedom of expression problem here? There seems to be an imbalance between the rights of random people to make perhaps unfounded claims to prompt a recall election, and then rules prohibiting “campaigning” on the recall issue.
Yeah it’s a bad design, not sure it violates any constitutional provision.