I was a bit surprised when I read last week’s article, “Who cares about the Student Government Association, anyway?” which addressed The Crimson White’s coverage of allegations of corruption within the SGA. In it, the author rather bluntly responded to his own question with “I could literally not care less.”
I was not surprised by the response itself as much as that it took this long for someone to actually write it.
After all, I would guess that the relevance of the SGA to an average student here ranks just above our dear monarch, the Homecoming Queen. This perception is not entirely unfounded; it is a student government.
While the SGA has the potential to directly impact the student body and on occasion has done incredible things for this University, the author is correct that it would be wrong to elevate the SGA on a pedestal and treat it like the Federal government.
However, I become confused when the author says that we should not care about the allegations of corruptions and instead focus on “making the University of Alabama the best university in the world.” Well, how exactly do we accomplish this lofty goal?
In my opinion, the answer does not lie, as the author implies, in a disengaged student body that simply does not care.
These allegations of corruption in the SGA, which threatened to delegitimize one of the University’s core freshman programs, are simply the products of much larger issues of division and inequity on campus. Issues that affect us all.
Whether it is a presidential resignation that was picked up by the Tuscaloosa News or a racial slur that worked its way into USA Today, the collateral damage caused by a mindset of division actively tarnishes the image of progress created by the University’s growth. When we graduate, we will hold a degree that says “The University of Alabama” on it. What associations do you want to appear with it? I hope that it will not be these.
Beyond that, we are tangibly affected by these issues. The “irregularities” in the application review process are a slap in the face to the freshman class, who attended this University with the understanding that they would be given a fair opportunity to excel.
If people are this predisposed against each other, then it has the potential to affect any student-led initiative on campus. Affiliations, or lack thereof, should not be the sole determining factor for any admissions process on campus.
The question still remains, why should we care?
Change begins with students. Apathy is an implicit support of the status quo. It would be quite possible for a student to hide in a dorm room and never really venture into campus beyond attending class just enough to pass; however, both the student and the University would be worse off for it.
The student body deserves to know what happened. It does not have to come at a cost of student privacy, packaged in a scandalous story with juicy details. In fact, it would be counterproductive to publish a story that tars and feathers the students involved in the name of campus unity. However, an explanation is still necessary for progress to occur.
Without this transparency, the downward public relations spiral of the entire situation will continue and student trust in campus leaders will diminish even further than it already has. We need to be able to identify the inequities that led to this problem in the first place before we can even hope to address them.
In order to receive this change, we all must care enough to demand it.
John Brinkerhoff is a sophomore majoring in political science and communication studies and the chairman of the SGA Senate Committee on Finance. His column runs biweekly on Mondays.
