Editor’s note: This is a developing story and will continue to be updated.
Several posters denouncing the Machine were found in Little Hall Friday morning with the message, “If you support MACHINE values over social work values: Change your major.”
Other posters that said, “The Machine seeks oppression. Social workers seek justice,” were also found on walls and doors throughout the building, which houses the University’s School of Social Work.
The posters were put up by Casey Buisson, a senior majoring in social work, who said he wanted to make people aware of the Machine’s influence on campus politics.
“Because of last year … where we did have a Machine senator only because two independents didn’t run, I’m really glad that it’s not that way this year, but I thought people should be aware,” Buisson said.
Buisson took inspiration from identical posters put up four years ago by then-student Zachary Boros.
Buisson said the Machine’s actions and values conflict with the values of the School of Social Work. The Machine, officially known as Theta Nu Epsilon, is a select coalition of traditionally white fraternities and sororities designed to influence campus policies.
“The School of Social Work should be the place, it is the only place on campus where the Machine doesn’t have a tight grip, doesn’t have a hold on us, because [its] values are incompatible with the social work values and our code of ethics,” Buisson said.
Buisson said he believes that recent SGA actions are related to Machine involvement.
“Just look at what they did last night in the Senate, where you had all these people come up and speak about making voting 48 hours, and after hearing all these students speak for, I think it was like 20 minutes, they just took it down,” Buisson said.
The Crimson White reached out to the four candidates for the School of Social Work’s Senate seats: Brandon Guisinger, Reece Helms, Raegan NeSmith and Ragan Hope Wilson.
Wilson, who is currently running for reelection, said via email that she agrees with the statements on the posters.
“Social Work as a field is guided by a code of ethics that has six core values: service, social justice, dignity and worth of the person, importance of human relationships, integrity, and competence,” Wilson said. “These values steer me and my work, and they just simply are in direct opposition to The Machine and the plague it is and has been to SGA, student life, and democracy at this institution.”
Wilson said “there is no question” about the Machine’s existence on campus.
“The pervasive nature of The Machine has been able to make many good and smart student leaders, who I genuinely believe want to make UA a better place, feel like they have to choose between leading with their own integrity, or upholding a dishonest form of power to protect status quo and their own self-interest at any cost,” Wilson said.
Guisinger, Helm and NeSmith did not respond in time for publication.
