As complicated as the current co-op mess may seem, one thing is certain — there is plenty of blame to go around. At the center of the current controversy, however, remain Associated Students and the Graduate Student Association.

A decade ago, these groups agreed to develop a lease with the university and then craft subleases with the individual co-ops. When the original lease, known as the Master Space Agreement, and the sublease, the Memorandum of Understanding, expired in 1998, the university agreed to two-year extensions.

Last year, when their lease with the university expired, Associated Students and the Graduate Student Association prematurely approved a two-year extension for their subleases with the co-ops before extending their agreement with the university. When university officials refused to renew the agreement, they found themselves leasing space that they no longer controlled.

By acting prematurely, Associated Students and the Graduate Student Association have recklessly put the future of the campus co-ops in a legal limbo, as they face possible eviction in a matter of weeks.

But the culpability is not theirs alone. Campus administrators let down the very students whose own self-approved referendum dollars are paying for the expansion of the university centers. Through interaction on the Co-op Oversight Committee, officials should have made clear their intention to renegotiate the university’s deal with the governing bodies in time to avoid the current fiasco.

In the meantime, the co-ops are the victims of this failure in communication.