A Duke Student Government Judiciary complaint regarding an alleged breach in Young Trustee selection bylaw was settled after a closed hearing concluded at approximately 3 a.m. Thursday.
Senior Ubong Akpaninyie, DSG director of multicultural outreach and affairs and a Young Trustee semifinalist, filed a complaint early Wednesday morning contending that the Young Trustee Nominating Committee violated title three, section five of the Young Trustee bylaw. This section dictates that the YTNC must hold an information session for all Young Trustee semifinalists so the applicants can ask questions of the YTNC chair, and if both are available, the Duke University Secretary and a current Young Trustee.
The complaint followed the YTNC’s selection of three finalists in the race for Young Trustee.
The section in question also instructs the YTNC to publish the names of candidates receiving interviews and their applications. By a 7-0 vote, the judiciary found that the YTNC had not properly followed the bylaw, however, the judiciary wrote that the candidate selection process was fair, according to the DSG Judiciary majority opinion provided to The Chronicle.
The YTNC’s decision to select seniors Kaveh Danesh, Michael Mandl and Olly Wilson as Young Trustee finalists stands.
“I am very happy that the judiciary agreed with me and saw the case how I saw it—that the YTNC did not act in agreement with a bylaw,” Akpaninyie said. “I hope this leads to more transparency in the process so that the community can know what occurs during these closed [YTNC] sessions and for better compliance of the Young Trustee bylaw. This portion of the bylaw had not been followed for a couple of years, but my opinion is that compliance and transparency will lead to greater reform of the process.”
Akpaninyie said junior Samantha Lachman, chair of the YTNC, did not hold an information session, which contributed to a rushed Young Trustee selection process.
“There was a clear violation of the YT bylaw,” Akpaniniyie said. “It was unfair, and I felt it compromised the process for Young Trustee candidates.”
Lachman, a columnist for The Chronicle and contributing writer for Towerview, could not be reached for comment.
According to the majority opinion, Lachman argued that the selection processes did not need to follow the exact rules laid out by the bylaw because there were only seven students in the entire candidate pool. The bylaw details a primary listed condition that a pool of at least eight candidates exists, and Lachman argued that this condition was not met.
She also argued that an information session was held electronically, because her correspondence with candidates included a statement that candidates could contact her if they had any questions.
“The committee also argued that the ‘spirit of the bylaws’ had been entirely satisfied by the actions of the YTNC, and therefore the lack of an information session was legally irrelevant,” the judiciary wrote in the majority opinion.
The judiciary also wrote that the YTNC does not have the ability to select which bylaws to follow and added that a digital information session was not sufficient because it did not allow candidates to hear each others’ questions and responses.
The YTNC was ultimately found to have violated the bylaw and was ordered to write an apology to the seven Young Trustee candidates and issue a verbal apology at the next DSG Senate meeting. The judiciary, however, found that the finalist selection process was fair.
“We came to the result that the selection process was fair, but we think things could have been done better and hence asked for an apology,” said senior Matt Straus, chief justice of the DSG Judiciary.
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