USG failed to comply with referendum

“The USG shall produce a publicly accessible and up-to-date list of its elected members who have and have not signed [the pledge],” Section II of the referendum said, but until 6:21 p.m. on Tuesday, no such list was available on the USG’s website.

“Members of the USG senate weren’t entirely clear whether or not the pledge applied to current USG representative or just newly elected individuals,” Diemand-Yauman said in an e-mail, explaining why the names were not posted before Tuesday. “Regardless, we have decided to publicly display which current USG members have and have not signed the pledge on the USG website.”

He added, “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.”

On Tuesday evening, following inquiries from The Daily Princetonian, the USG posted a statement on its website listing 15 individuals who have declined to sign the pledge: USG president Connor Diemand-Yauman ’10, vice president Michael Weinberg ’11, treasurer Trevor Martin ’11, Undergraduate Life Committee chair Arthur Levy ’10, social chair John Wetenhall ’11, Campus and Community Affairs chair George Tsivin ’10, Class of 2010 senator Cole Morris, Class of 2012 senator Becca Lee, Class of 2012 senator Julie Chang, and U-Councilors Carter Greenbaum ’12, Julia Kaplan ’11, Brian No ’10, Kelly Roache ’12, Harry Schiff ’10 and John-Allen Zumpetta ’11.

The website also noted that U-Councilors Steve Lindsay ’12 and Tiernan Kane ’11 have agreed to sign the pledge.

The list does not include four elected officials: Class of 2010 senator Christina Bortz, Class of 2011 senators Brian Jeong and Derek Welski and U-Councilor Alex Pretko ’12.

It also doesn't include four appointed officers: executive secretary Jack Altman ’11, communications director Peter Tzeng ’10, media liaison Billy Hepfinger ’10 and IT Committee chair Michael Yaroshefsky ’12.

“By signing this pledge, I would be indirectly subscribing to the view that the USG would benefit by creating a more antagonistic relationship with administrators or that administrators would base their recommendations of a student not on the merit or presentation of their arguments but rather on their ‘cooperation’ and acquiescence on the issues. Both of these beliefs are patently false,” Diemand-Yauman said.

“My administration has been able to tackle a number of significant issues because we made a promise that we would not be antagonistic with administrators for the sake of appearing as though we were ‘fighting’ for the students,” he added. “This rather disingenuous strategy hasn’t worked for previous administrators, and I don’t believe it will work for future administrators either.”

The USG has complied with the requirements of Section IV of the referendum by posting a list of the current candidates for USG positions who have signed the pledge.

Eric Kang ’10 proposed the pledge referendum last spring, and it passed by a 1,482-685 vote. The pledge asked USG candidates to sign the pledge, which states, “In the interest of absolving any possible conflicts of interest as a representative of the student body, I will neither seek nor accept a letter of recommendation from the members of the University administration explicitly stated in Section III [president, provost, any vice president, dean of the college, any associate dean of undergraduate students], nor any with whom I have had or will have to work pursuant to my duties as a member of the USG.”

Kang said the USG failed to implement all sections of the referendum in a timely manner despite his sending reminders to Diemand-Yauman. Kang is also a columnist for The Daily Princetonian.

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“This is particularly disappointing in light of the fact that I have sent Connor ‘reminder’ e-mails at two separate occasions,” he said, adding that the USG also failed to comply with the requirements of the referendum in the recent Class of 2013 elections.

Though the referendum refers only to “elected USG members,” it “never excludes class officers explicitly,” Kang explained in an e-mail, “in which case this should have been implemented for the class officer elections.”