Editorial: A Summary Case Against The Spring 2024 Athletics Fee Referendum

 

(Photo: ''Court Gavel - Judge's Gavel - Courtroom'' by wp paarz via Flickr)

If there is any lesson students should learn from this spring’s athletics fee referendum it is that their student government cannot protect them against special interest interference and is too weak as an institution to provide adequate student representation

To see this, consider the referendum’s biased ballot language, how it compelled students to favor the fee increase.

“Nearly 300 student-athletes participate in intercollegiate athletics at UT Tyler on 18 teams. The UT Tyler Patriots compete in the NCAA Division II Lone Star Conference with the lowest student athletic fee in the conference….Do you support the increase of the UT Tyler athletic fee to fund athletics, increase the value of your UT Tyler degree, and provide students with more engagement and support opportunities?"

Its language should have been impartial. It illustrates unprecedented ballot access by one campaign in the election.

Furthermore, student government failed to uphold its own rules at the fee proposal vote on Feb. 6 when the student body president, a former student athlete, compelled senators to vote to advance the proposal to the spring ballot despite the SGA constitution’s requirement that SGA presidents remain impartial about motions. She said, “I don’t want there to be a misconception [that] this is athletes versus non-athletes. At the end of the day, we are all one student body. From my perspective, I would like for all of us to stand up for all of us.”

This spring’s referendum process reveals student government is in a state of extremely weak institutional health and in this state cannot protect students from special interest influence.

Student government failed to maintain proper form because it is weak and incompetent. Students cannot rely upon it to protect against special interest influence. However, student government’s anemic state is not an opportunity for administrators to benefit from its incompetence. To do so would be predatory behavior.

Therefore, administrators have a responsibility to behave uprightly, regardless of what students do. They are responsible to get their own house in order.

However, this is what they did not do. Administrators failed to manage themselves responsibly by their failure to declare their change in their relationship dynamic with students and so declare their conflict of interest. They failed to restrain themselves with that highly partial, compelling ballot language that was on the referendum. They should have declined to accept it. They also failed to abide by student government election rules in their campaign.

In these many ways, administration had its own failures to live as uprightly and as ethically as it should have. These administrators hold the higher responsibility. Their irresponsibility in these matters alone is enough to alter the referendum’s outcome and to nullify the referendum results.

This is exactly what The Board of Regents should do. It should nullify the results.

Feature Image: Photo: ''Court Gavel - Judge's Gavel - Courtroom'' by wp paarz via Flickr