By Matt Thacker
After a nearly unanimous vote to impeach Student Government Association Academic Vice President Sarah Hester earlier this month, SGA senators seemed to have had a change of heart at last Tuesday’s removal hearing, voting to keep Hester in her position for the remainder of the year.
The impeachment came as a result of senators’ concerns that Hester had missed two Senate meetings and had not been in recent contact with other SGA officers. Yet the senators determined at the trial that her actions were not worthy of removal. Removal required a 2/3 vote. While 21 senators voted not to remove Hester from office, only 16 voted for removal.
The outcome did not surprise Hester. “I was pretty sure they would vote for me,” she said. “I had faith that once I presented documents proving my absences were medically related, they would support me.”
Denise Gifford, vice president for Student Affairs, oversaw the hearing, which was held in accordance with administrative hearing process policies. Hester defended herself while Renea Steele, who had proposed the impeachment, argued for her removal. Each summoned and questioned witnesses and then followed with a final statement.
The senators began the meeting by voting to make the hearing and discussion private, barring non-Senate members from remaining in the room for the hearing and discussion process.
One senator said the matters being discussed were personal, and senators should not be afraid what they say may be printed in the newspaper. Another senator argued students had a right to know the facts surrounding the case.
Hester’s friends and family who came to support her did not like the decision but waited outside until they were allowed back in to witness the vote.
Hester’s mother, Rhonda Hester, came to support to her daughter.
“I think impeachment is a pretty serious action, and I think it should have been a last resort,” she said. “Sarah should have been able to address the concerns of the senate long before it came to impeachment.”
She also expressed concern for how the impeachment would reflect on her daughter’s record in the future and said that such a rash decision should have been considered more carefully.
Many SGA members agreed. Supreme Court Justice Michelle Grant said senators are drafting an accountability policy to track how much work each senator and officer does to avoid future confusion.
Nathan Haney, president of the Arts and Sciences Student Council, felt the senate acted too quickly in impeaching Hester. “I believe what we saw … is that the Senate often times jumps the gun, so to speak, and acts too quickly on issues that need time to sort out all of the facts,” Haney said.
Steele called four witnesses. She said one testified Hester had gone to several soccer games during February, and a fraternity formal in Chicago during December.
She said other witnesses testified Hester had not attended meetings of the top four officials and had not sent reports when she could not attend meetings. She also said Hester’s only major project was working to change the plus/minus grading system, and a senator testified the majority of the work had been done by him rather than Hester.
Hester said her social life had suffered, as well as school and SGA duties because of her health problems, but she had attended some social events because she was not sick all the time. She added that most of the work of an academic vice president goes unnoticed.
“The position of academic vice president involves a lot of meetings and projects that take place outside the SGA office,” she said.
Speed Council President Darrell Messer was one of two Senators to abstain from voting. Abstaining counted as a vote against removal. Messer said he chose to abstain because of contradictory evidence including Hester’s claiming that she attended faculty Senate meetings for which there was no record of her attendance.
“It was clear that [Hester] had failed to follow … the letter of the law established by our constitution, but it was not clear that her transgression warranted removal,” Messer said.
Steele has come under some attack herself as senators have accused her of attacking Hester for personal reasons, but Steele denies the assertions.
“This impeachment was not about her personality,” Steele said. “It was about her work ethic. I feel that some of my peers have trouble differentiating between the two and these rumors of personal vendettas have originated from this lack of understanding.”
Messer also defended Steele’s intentions, calling her an “SGA heroine.”
“[Steele] has single-handedly lifted the standard to which future SGA executives will be held,” he said. “No longer do they have the lack of precedent for impeachment to rely on.”
Controversy also surrounded the voting method. The senators decided to use a roll call vote which meant senators would say their vote out loud as their names were called. Senators quarreled over who would vote first, whether roll should be called in alphabetical or reverse-alphabetical order. Steele felt senators may have felt pressure to vote a certain way.
“I think that the roll call vote did make a difference in the way some senators voted, especially since several senators are friends with [Hester],” she said.
Hester said she will give a full report at the next senate meeting showing exactly what she has done over the past months. While she hopes to move on from the incident, she does fear the impeachment could cause her problems in the future.
“I hope the impeachment doesn’t come back to haunt me some day,” she said. “But it definitely has stained my reputation.”
