Editor’s Note: Cleo Sawhney is a former Daily staffer. Sawhney did not contribute to the editing or reporting of this article.
The University of Michigan’s Central Student Government met July 15 over Zoom to discuss structural and procedural reforms, including a proposal to pay CSG interns, officially recognize CSG caucuses and grant prosecutorial discretion to CSG election officials.
The meeting began with the election of Law School student Keethan Kleiner to the CSG Judicial Appointment Committee and the confirmation of a series of executive nominations. These included LSA rising sophomore Keira Morrell as community liaison, LSA rising junior Cleo Sawhney as director of internal affairs and LSA rising sophomore Nicole Zhong as director of the CSG First-Year Internship Program.
Several pieces of legislation were passed during the session. Among these were AR 15-016, which launched a recurring CSG campus survey to help improve CSG policies and make them more responsive to the student body; AR 15-014, which amended CSG’s standing rules surrounding attendance at committee meetings; and AR 15-015, which reduced the number of diversity, equity and inclusion training sessions held during the summer.
CGS also introduced AR 15-022, which would launch a one-time survey to assess the pervasiveness of online sports betting on campus.
Rackham student Erin Neely said it was important for CSG and the University to fight against the increasing prevalence of online gambling on college campuses, which has in some cases been promoted by universities themselves.
“We don’t want to go down the route of Louisiana State or Michigan State (University), which were found in a New York Times investigation to be partnering with sportsbooks to give subsidized deals for students,” Neely said. “No, we want to go in the opposite direction.”
The Assembly also considered AR 15-018, which aimed to establish a cap on how much need-based compensation could be claimed by CSG officials who work under the Office of the Speaker. It also originally sought to make CSG interns eligible for need-based compensation. Following debate, the Assembly passed an amended version of the resolution, striking the provision for the payment of interns with an intention to revisit the topic at a later date.
Rackham student Angelica Previero said she was hesitant to support the resolution given the current structure of the CSG internship program, which lacks specific job descriptions for prospective interns. Previero said that while she supported paying interns for their work, she didn’t want to pay interns who did little to no work.
“My concern would be for someone to tune into an Assembly meeting in the background and get their five hours per week,” Previero said. “It’s important to hear how Assembly runs, but at the same time is that really ‘work’ work?”
LSA rising senior Riley Kina, sponsor of the resolution, said she understood Previero’s concerns, but disliked singling out interns when similar behavior was displayed by many CSG officials.
“I agree, I think we should create a (job) description,” Kina said. “But for the idea of people just tuning into an Assembly meeting — I can sit here right now and probably give you 10 names of Assembly members who are sitting here, and they could be need-based comp and they’re just tuning in; they don’t say anything. There’s absolutely no difference.”
The Assembly also considered AR 15-017, which seeks to create a structure to officially recognize the three CSG caucuses that have formed throughout the past year — the Black Caucus, Arab Caucus and Disability Caucus — and to create an official framework for others to be created in the future.
Previero said she had some concerns about the resolution as it was written, as she believed it could lend a level of official recognition to caucuses with views that were hateful or otherwise unpopular with the rest of CSG.
“What if some people make the caucus against accessibility, against specific people?” Previero asked. “What would be the line between freedom of speech and not finding ourselves in dicey positions in which we must approve a caucus that would not be something the rest of the Assembly and CSG at large would support?”
LSA rising senior Keshava Demerath-Shanti said he believed the creation of caucuses should not be dependent on whether the rest of CSG approved of them.
“My concern was sort of that (of Previero), but inverted,” Demerath-Shanti said. “I think it needs to be the case that, if we’re going to do this, unless a caucus in its existence somehow violates either University or CSG policy or the statements they want to release similarly violate some policy, then they should be approved no matter what.”
The resolution was re-referred to the Rules and Communications committees to be reworked.
The Assembly lastly considered AR 15-019, which would grant prosecutorial discretion, the ability to decide whether or not to press charges in a case, to the independent special prosecutor, a CSG elections official tasked with litigating campaign disputes. LSA rising junior Aiden Burke, who introduced the resolution, said the CSG prosecutor should have the same powers as U.S. prosecutors.
“Prosecutors across the United States have discretion in determining what matters warrant a case being filed in the court and what matters don’t, so there is no reason why our ISP doesn’t have the same discretion,” Burke said.
Engineering rising sophomore Nicolas Torres de Navarra said he opposed the resolution and believed it would allow the ISP to act in biased ways that would damage CSG’s public image.
“I don’t think I’ve seen a more destructive piece of legislation to CSG’s potential reputation among students,” Torres de Navarra said. “I think that we already have a pretty bad reputation from what I hear among my people, and I think that this would make it worse if there’s even an appearance of essentially bias on the part of an ISP.”
Neely said that, while she had mixed feelings on the topic, she felt prosecutorial discretion would not lead to corruption.
“Even if the ISP does not have discretion, they could always deliberately throw or half-ass a case against one of their friends,” Neely said. “So giving prosecutorial discretion would save everyone’s time, in not necessarily those cases … but in cases that are frivolous.”
The Assembly re-referred the resolution to the Rules Committee for further adjustments.
Summer News Editor Glenn Hedin can be reached at heglenn@umich.edu.
