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Last Thursday, a special General Student Senate meeting was held regarding a resolution to “vehemently condemn The Maine Campus for actions taken at an ROC meeting on Nov. 30 and asked for student government to take legal action on their behalf.” Sen. William Pomerleau, of the College of Education and Human Development, sponsored the resolution.
Last Wednesday, Campus assistant news editor Ernest Scheyder and photography editor Laura Giorgio were asked to leave an ROC meeting when it went into executive session. Later, Scheyder and Giorgio returned with Campus opinion editor Michael Hartwell when the Campus editorial staff determined that the ROC constitution made no provision for executive session. Their actions halted the proceedings during ROC’s executive session.
Student body President Kate O’Brien, before the GSS meeting, reminded everybody to remain polite and civil. She also said that both The Maine Campus and ROC are here to serve the student body, and to keep that in mind throughout the meeting and while making decisions.
Pomerleau said in his opening speech that The Maine Campus’s actions were a slap in the face to Maine state law and that the Campus was guilty of criminal trespass according to law.
“Freedom of the press does not grant blanket access, throwing caution to the wind and waving the Constitution around,” Pomerleau said.
Sen. Nathanael Saint-Cyr, of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, began his questioning of Pomerleau by asking whether or not it is appropriate to “vehemently condemn” The Maine Campus. Pomerleau answered by saying it was significant that members of the student body respect other groups’ bylaws and that it was more than appropriate because it was in blatant disregard of ROC’s rules.
“I think this is ridiculous. I think this is absolutely ridiculous,” Saint-Cyr said, beginning his debate. He said The Maine Campus provides a service to the students and Student Government should not vehemently condemn their actions. He said that Scheyder, Giorgio and Hartwell were not aware of ROC’s procedures and rather than vehemently condemn their actions, another less drastic alternative should be presented.
“I see students standing in front of me,” he said, speaking of Campus staff. “Maybe they didn’t know Robert’s Rules. It doesn’t mean we should go after an organization that does so much good for the students.”
Saint-Cyr finished his opening debate by saying that by taking action like this, GSS would not be representing the students’ opinion, and the 9,000 students on campus would not vehemently condemn other students for these actions.
Pomerleau said ignorance is no defense in the court of law. “Whether you’re stupid or not, whether you don’t know what you’re doing or not, that does not apply,” he said.
He went on to say that Student Government is not a legislative body in terms of freedom of the press, but that Student Government is a private corporation, making it not subject to freedom of access laws. He did say, however, that they tend to agree and comply with these even though they are not required to, to actively and fairly represent the students.
He continued further setting up the scenario for anyone unfamiliar with the situation. “ROC’s President Adam Kirkland was served with a resolution to impeach him. And they went into executive session to deliberate this,” Pomerleau said. He went on to state four conditions that must be upheld for the executive session to be acceptable, all of which he claimed were met for ROC’s executive session.
Pomerleau went on to say that he was advised not to seek a lawsuit for compensatory damages, but rather to seek a formal apology from those involved with the incident. He also said he wanted some sort of declaratory judgment for future instances, where a judge would say that Student Government has the right to move into executive session without any disturbances from the Campus.
After opening debates, Scheyder was asked to step forward and give his side of the story. He said he sat through the first 90 minutes of the ROC meeting and was only asked to leave when Kirkland’s impeachment was brought up.
“We, as a staff, feel that it is a clear contradiction to the ROC constitution, their bylaws and of course, Robert’s Rules,” Scheyder said. He said that the ROC constitution states that the meetings are to be open to the public all the time.
“[The Maine Campus] should not be penalized because the ROC constitution cannot agree with itself,” Scheyder said. “We determined that based on the constitution, there was some ambiguity there.” He said The Maine Campus is in the interest of reporting news and that the impeachment of a president that 4,000 people had elected classifies as newsworthy.
To open his final debate, Saint-Cyr said that this is not how problems like this should be handled. He said he believes other students oftentimes portray Student Government as a “cliquey” group who all belong to sororities or fraternities or part of the population of students that are above others. He said that this type of action would confirm that behavior in the University of Maine GSS.
“It’s nitpicking. It’s being an old grandma and nitpicking at people who are doing their job,” he said. “This is attacking students. We don’t attack students.”
After this, an action was taken to, instead of vehemently condemn the Campus, seek an apology from Scheyder, Hartwell, Giorgio and The Maine Campus editor in chief Matthew Conyers for their actions.
Next, Pomerleau said he agreed with the resolution for a formal apology, because it was the Campus’s first offense. He also said the staff members being held accountable were not only students but also journalists and that the action being taken against them was based on their journalist and not student status.
After this, Saint-Cyr said he had spoken with Conyers, and they agreed not to interrupt further executive sessions. He said the resolution should be dropped because it was the papers’ first offense and they agreed not to interrupt any further executive sessions and agreed to apologize.
A vote was taken to amend the resolution to seek an apology from Campus members who were involved with the incident, instead of seeking legal action. The voting was in favor of the amendment.
After this, Conyers spoke about the apology. He said that he would apologize for the manner in which things happened, but he would not apologize for the actual reporting The Maine Campus did.
Proceeding Conyers, Hartwell said that Pomerleau was bringing his personal issues against Hartwell in the resolution against The Maine Campus. Hartwell said he and Pomerleau had a disagreement a few weeks prior and this was an act of retaliation. After that, he offered Pomerleau a chance to debate on WMEB or some other media outlet.
The senate then voted to table the resolution indefinitely and the meeting was adjourned.
Editor’s note: In conjunction with journalistic ethics, no member of the editorial board wrote this story, as all members of the editorial board were cited in the senate resolution.
