It is supposedly ambiguous whether the referendum applies to class officers. Article I of the USG Constitution explicitly includes the class governments under the USG. The text of the referendum refers to “members of the USG” and never excludes class officers. Hence, it unambiguously includes class officers within its scope. Therefore, a) the USG failed to comply with the referendum insofar as it did not implement the referendum in the recent Class of 2013 election, and b) current class officers should promptly make public their own responses to the pledge.
The second alleged ambiguity concerns whether the pledge prohibits USG members from obtaining references from the academic faculty. This has been cited as the reason for not signing the pledge by some USG members and candidates, and Dan Humphrey ’12 was circulating a petition to amend the pledge for this reason. The pledge reads: “I will neither seek nor accept a letter of recommendation from the members of the University administration explicitly stated in Section III, nor any with whom I have or will have to work pursuant to my duties as a member of the USG.” The antecedent of “any” is clearly “members of the University administration”; otherwise the text would use something like “anyone else”. Nowhere in the referendum is a reference made to the faculty; on the contrary, it repeatedly mentions “administrators”. Only a perverted, intellectually dishonest or careless reading of the text would introduce the faculty within the bounds intended. Humphrey has since withdrawn his petition after discussing this issue with me.
The next issue concerns the responses of the current elected members of the USG as (rather belatedly) released on Dec. 1. All but two of the elected members have either declined to sign the pledge or do not appear on the released statement. Of course, the referendum does not mandate anyone to sign the pledge, but it does state that, “It is the official policy of the USG.” USG members therefore must give it due respect or satisfactorily justify why they refuse to honor this official policy.
The Dec. 2 article on this issue (“USG failed to comply with referendum”) quoted Connor Diemand-Yauman ’10 as saying “In all honesty, I think that this pledge is ridiculous. It perpetuates a misguided, counterproductive view of the way that the USG functions, one that I believe has the potential to hurt the USG in the long run.” In the Dec. 1 article (“Some USG officers will not sign recommendation pledge”), Michael Weinberg ’11 gave a similar opinion.
This is rather duplicitous of Diemand-Yauman and Weinberg. The organizers of the referendum met with Diemand-Yauman on April 12, and with Weinberg and then elections manager Sophie Jin ’11 on April 13, to discuss the appropriateness of the referendum. After the meeting, Diemand-Yauman sent us an e-mail, saying, “I believe this referendum has the potential to do a lot of good.” Likewise, neither Weinberg nor Jin expressed sustained opposition or concern. No change has since been made to the referendum.
April was the right time to express general concerns or opposition to the referendum. We arranged the meeting so that USG representatives would have two full weeks to respond in whatever way they deemed appropriate. They did nothing, the referendum passed (by a wide margin), and Article X of the USG Constitution states “The Senate shall be bound by the result of the referendum if at least one-sixth of regularly-enrolled undergraduates vote in the majority.” If there is sweeping opposition to the referendum, the USG has legal recourses by which to overthrow it. They can petition a referendum to that end. Otherwise, each USG member must explain why he or she should be especially exempt from honoring this official policy.
Nevertheless, let me respond to two primary reasons given by those USG members and candidates who decline to sign the referendum. First, it is argued that the referendum is unfairly punitive of hard work. This sense of entitlement has no place in the USG. Almost all other Princetonians involved in extracurricular activities invest much time into improving our collective lives at Princeton. Few of them have access to high-ranking administrators, but they are nevertheless glad to do their bit for Princeton. Is it too much for the student body to demand of its democratically elected representatives (to whom it ought to be a privilege to serve their constituency) similar levels of other-serving commitment?
Second, it is argued that signing the pledge would be incorrectly interpreted as an implicit admission of ulterior motives in the USG, which would be damaging. This is terribly mistaken. The student body already has this perception, and the USG would far better heal this mistrust by sending out a strong signal with unanimous agreement to sign the pledge.
The referendum should not be read as subscribing to a specific view on the most effective working dynamic between the USG and the administration or as a general condemnation of the USG. Politicians, scholarly journal reviewers or adjudicators/judges, for example, are expected to self-declare potential conflicts of interest, and no one interprets that as an admission of corruption. In fact, if anything, the absence of such a declaration procedure would be seen as a strong sign of corruption.
The referendum represents the demands of a dominant majority of the voting student body. The members of the USG should reconsider their position on this matter.
Eric Kang is a math major from Christchurch, New Zealand. He can be reached at eakang@princeton.edu.
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