Johns Hopkins U.: COLUMN: Senior class crisis reeks of political games.

(From University Wire)

Byline: Eric Wolkoff

A few weeks ago, members of the Johns Hopkins University Senior Class Council submitted a list of grievances to Payal Patel asking her to resign her office. After this request for her resignation, she collected signatures and submitted a petition to recall Senior Class Vice President Brian Drolet.

To be fair, Patel commented that the petition was in no way related to the list of grievances. She stated that the petition was in response to the event at the Mansion and not political retaliation to the request for her resignation. She pointed to the fact that "the petition was started the day after [the Mansion] event occurred ... two or three weeks after I received the list of grievances." Thus, it is her claim that her attempt to recall Drolet was not a matter of retaliation, but out of legitimate concern of his actions and the possible harm that they could bring to the senior class.

Drolet disagrees. He said, "Payal's petition is clearly a vindictive attack in response to a decision by our class to ask for her resignation due to her poor leadership." He commented that "it is unfortunate that Payal has taken the route of vengeance rather than the route of humility. ... [The petition] is full of libelous untruths." As I conducted my investigation, evidence mounted that supported Brian's claim. Senior Senator Stephen Popowski said, "Payal was presented with our list of grievances the Tuesday before the Mansion event." Senior David McGovern, who signed her petition remarked to me that at the time of their signing they were told that a reason to impeach Drolet was that he "tried to remove Pate; even though she didn't do anything to merit that." Although Patel herself did not hand deliver the petition to this student, the statement implicates the petition as an act of political retaliation.

Regardless of the motivations behind the petition, the reasons listed on the petition to impeach Drolet are antithetical to the interests of the senior class. The petition attacks Drolet for his planning of the Senior Night at the Mansion. It claims that he broke administration rules by planning the event and that the class incurred a loss of $3,000 from "an intentional $5 loss per ticket." Furthermore, the petition claims that "Drolet deliberately led the effort to make social event plans for the class without informing all officers." Finally, the petition asserts that Drolet has shirked class duties and planned the social event without informing all other class officers.

To begin, any senior who was at this event knows that it was the best social event that our class has ever ...