At times, A.S. President Christopher Sweeten is as much of a figurehead in his A.S. Council as Prince Charles is in the British Parliament.
As the council’s leader, Sweeten’s role entails ultimate responsibility for the unraveling of Student-Run Television. As a nonvoting member of the council, he could only watch as councilmembers spouted ideologies at each other in what Sweeten considered to be unfruitful bickering.
“It is frustrating working on issues with the council [on this subject],” Sweeten stated in an e-mail. “As always [happens] with the information that I give out, councilmembers take out what they want to hear and not the whole picture. This is bound to happen in any council because people will always allow their personal feelings to intertwine with the way they vote.”
While the council’s actions, which included banning John Muir College senior Steve York from SRTV premises, received a legal blessing from Campus Counsel Daniel W. Park, station managers returned with their opinion that the student government had no legal right to impose such legislation, backed by lawyers at the Student Press Law Center. Meanwhile, Sweeten’s advice to hire an independent lawyer for both the council and SRTV went unheard.
“I do feel campus counsel is looking at the best interest of the university and not the interest of the students,” he stated. “I also feel that the [Student Press Law Center] is looking out for its own fame on a certain level. A lawyer agreed upon by both groups would have solved all of our arguments over the legalities of the [SRTV] charter.”
However, the legal squabbles remained unsolved, culminating in the station’s shutdown by the council Nov. 4. When Sweeten requested that SRTV be turned back on Nov. 7, he was rebuffed by acting Assistant Vice Chancellor of Student Life Gary R. Ratcliff, who said he wanted to see council control over the station before it was to be revived. The station has been blacked out ever since.
The loss of control over SRTV could have been prevented with proper oversight and communication, Sweeten said. He also criticized a defective council system that he said lacks accountability, allowing senators to vote according to their private interests.
“I feel that our system doesn’t allow any accountability when it comes to our senators, meaning the council can impeach a senator, but a college council can reappoint them,” Sweeten stated. “There needs to be a structure to allow senators to be voted on by the entire campus, like the A.S. executives.”
And while conventional wisdom might pit York against Sweeten, the pornography producer said he sympathizes with Sweeten’s conundrum over council control.
“The way the institution is set up, you have a lot of divergent viewpoints,” he said. “You have so many power-hungry and hypocritical people on the senate, and one for every college and grade. It’s tough to have control over senators in situations like this. Meanwhile, the whole appointment process is biased to friends and people they feel won’t argue. I do feel for Christopher, but I’m not sure how he can have better control.”
Yet other council leaders said the structure of the council has not affected the escalation of conflict between senators, SRTV and the administration.
“The system is not to blame here,” Muir College Council Chair Neil Spears said. “The structure of the council has been examined before, and it’s not the problem. Infighting happens within organizations. We’re only fighting more now than other times because the council made bad decisions, and those decisions have come back to haunt us.”
At a time when SRTV staff, councilmembers and Sweeten himself are calling for unity to recover control over the station, a rift of communication has been brewing between the president and other parties. In a Nov. 8 meeting with SRTV members, Sweeten admitted that in initial talks with the administration this summer, threats had already been made to “scramble the service” and “lock the doors.” Waiting until the situation was out of students’ hands to share that information was a major mistake, according to York.
“I do feel that I am at fault for not talking with Steve during all of this, but I do feel that I fought for SRTV as a whole and not just Steve,” Sweeten stated. “We cannot look at the incident that has taken place as a Steve issue; it’s an SRTV and A.S. issue that has never been addressed.”
But by sharing his views with SRTV before releasing an official statement to the council, Sweeten may have alienated fellow councilmembers. After the council shut down the station on Nov. 4, representatives were left without a reason for the blackout of their own service, according to Spears. Sweeten’s decision to address SRTV members Nov. 7 and his release of an official e-mail statement to the council the next day was damaging to his own student government, Spears said.
“SRTV is one of the players in this whole saga, but the A.S. Council is the main player,” Spears said. “It was a disservice to the council for him to speak with them before us. We had to hear everything secondhand. I felt very much kept in the dark. We’re the ones who are painted as the villain, and there was no way to defend ourselves because we didn’t know what was even going on.”
The coming weeks will be crucial for Sweeten, who, as A.S. president, will have to spearhead a special election that could overturn the council’s decisions to ban sexual forms of nudity on SRTV and prohibit York from the station’s premises. While the election has garnered some opponents, Sweeten said he would do all he can to make sure it happens.
All the while, the president, just months into his first term, will be scrutinized on all sides.
“The person at the top sets the tone,” Spears said. “A leadership void will cause confusion. It’s easy for me to be a sideline critic, and it would be a shame if we didn’t recognize he was in the hot seat. He has so many parties pulling him in different ways.”
