Last Wednesday, the Student Government Association met for a Special Senate meeting, where during scheduled reports, Senator and Internal Affairs Committee Chair Anahi Ortega recommended the Senate move to impeach President Diego Arriaga and Vice President Austin Craig.
This announcement and recommendation was made on behalf of the committee and was the conclusion of a weeks-long investigation.
“This is not an easy recommendation, I encourage you to ask questions about our process and what we’re thinking about,” Ortega said. “The committee does want to recommend to this Senate, that with the lack of effective leadership and the possible disorganization, that this senate considers the impeachment of the current president and vice president.”
On Sept. 18, Director of Outreach Bryanna Nimmons was terminated for alleged performance issues during SGA’s End The Stigma event.
Director of External Affairs Khushvir Chahal resigned and Director of Multicultural Affairs Parsa Torabi resigned after being allegedly offered the option by Arriaga. Speaker of the Senate Tav Cockrell announced an intention to resign but has not done so since Oct. 10.
“I have been deeply disappointed by the lack of accountability, communication and good intention from this administration. I have repeatedly found myself hindered in my efforts,” said Chahal at Sept. 18’s meeting.
This leaves the executive board with only four of the seven members active.
A successful impeachment could mean the removal of Arriaga and Craig from their positions in SGA which leaves only the Chief of Staff and Director of Public Relations as part of the executive board.
During the meeting, as well as in a follow-up interview, Ortega gave a broad overview of the committee’s rationale behind their recommendation.
“The claim was that former Director Parsa Torabi was given the opportunity to resign and Nimmons was not,” Ortega said. “Nimmons was fired the same day (End The Stigma) had failed, whereas former director Torabi had been given advanced warning about his possible departure from the organization.”
The IAC, which is responsible for the enforcement of the SGA’s constitution and bylaws, alleged that Arriaga had engaged in discriminatory practices for terminating Nimmons while allowing Torabi to resign instead.
In a Senate meeting on Sept. 18, Craig gave the executive branch’s reasoning behind terminating Nimmons.
“She had the opportunity to work from summer up to last Monday. In that time she was leading the event, she collected about 400 shirts out of the 1,100. We were missing 700 shirts that were supposed to be a memorial for all these kids,” Craig said.
At the same meeting, Craig also defended allowing Torabi to resign because Torabi mentioned how it would greatly affect his resume.
According to the committee, the executive branch alleged that Torabi had brought up an intention to resign earlier in the year.
“The timeline for the events is basically that former director Torabi, on his own accord, brought up the concern that he wanted to leave,” Ortega said. “The directors said we will accept your resignation at a later time, but that’s your decision to make, and in his preparation for MCAT, that was the primary source reasoning.”
However, Torabi announced he was fired rather than resigned at the Sept. 18 meeting. Torabi did not mention MCAT preparation as the reason for his leave.
“As of today, I have been fired from my position of Director of Multicultural Affairs,” Torabi said in a September meeting.
Additionally, Chief of Staff Daniela Gonzalez described Torabi’s leave as a firing.
“We did come across a couple of other scenarios where we asked if similar treatment was given to other members of his branch,” Ortega said. “It is the committee’s understanding that similar consideration was not carried out across the board.”
According to the committee, Arriaga cited that one of his primary reasons behind firing Nimmons was because it harmed the image SGA had with possible partnerships, organizations and other departments.
However, the IAC alleged SGA has had its image harmed already without any terminations, such as with the loss of its food permit for the rest of the semester.
The Committee said that Arriaga’s criteria for terminating Nimmons was unevenly applied as losing the food permit prevents SGA from holding food-related events with other organizations.
“Based on the President’s outlined criteria, that should also be a fireable offense, however, he said he believed that was a team effort, more than any one individual person,” Ortega said.
In a follow-up interview, Ortega mentioned various issues that arose from the executive branch.
“There were discrepancies in the consideration for termination of those directors, but beyond that the lack of coordination, communication and accountability,” Ortega said. “Leadership from the top executives of the branch led us to believe that this whole matter could have been avoided had proper leadership been exercised at a sooner point in time.”
The committee stated they plan to release their final report regarding the investigation by Oct. 11.
“In the committee’s eyes, it is a large failure of leadership on multiple counts,” Ortega said. “The committee wants to recommend the senate consider impeachment.”