In defense of DSG

Since the day I first stepped foot on this campus, it has been in vogue to criticize Duke Student Government. Whether on the campaign trail, in columns and op-eds or in proselytizing endorsements, everyone loves to tell us how to do our jobs better. While I will be the first to acknowledge that criticism of the government is a hallmark of a healthy republic, this election season has introduced a version of that rhetoric more insulting, more personal and more based on false statements than any in recent memory. So in defense of the organization I have served for four long years, I will address five of the most common criticisms levied against us and provide my recommendations for how best to remedy them.

Most common among the numerous critiques is that DSG is, at its core, ineffective and irrelevant. Critics claim that we have no real influence over any policy or segment of the campus and do nothing to improve what little we do control. First, let me point out that bureaucracies, and by extension governments, are slow and ineffective by design. The nature of a republic is such that no one person or body can collect so much power as to inflict irreparable harm on the society it purportedly represents. Anyone that has spent time in a DMV office can attest to that. DSG’s design similarly hampers progress on big, dramatic initiatives. It also allows individual senators or vice presidents to work on projects outside of the traditional government structure. Those projects contribute substantially to the student body, and do not get as much recognition as they deserve.

The fact that so many initiatives go unnoticed stems from the second criticism: that we do not communicate with the student body. That critique has two components. First, they argue we do not solicit input from students prior to making a significant change or starting a big project. Second, they argue we do not communicate the results of those projects once they are complete. On the first point, I remind you that students contribute to important decisions by electing their representatives each year. You may note correctly that elections, especially upperclassmen elections, suffer from a profound lack of candidates, but allow me to address that concern later.

On the second point that DSG does not effectively communicate its accomplishments back to the students, I will concede it as a significant weakness of our organization. For the past few years I maintained a personal belief that it was the responsibility of the student news organization to report on DSG’s accomplishments and convey them to the student body, but given their recent obstructionism and antagonism towards us, I no longer have confidence in their ability to do so. Rather, we must streamline our platforms and processes to make them more accessible to individual students.

Related to that issue is the third criticism that we lack transparency. I protest this accusation; DSG is the most transparent organization on campus. Our meetings are open to the public and now recorded each week, our executive board meetings are open to any and all students, our budget gets published each spring, and our minutes, agendas and legislation are all available for access online. I can count on one hand the number of individuals I have seen sit in on a senate or an executive meeting that they did not have to attend. Transparency is not the problem. Rather, critics use “lack of transparency” as a scapegoat to mask their own unwillingness to research our initiatives independently.

The fourth and final external criticism is that DSG focuses far too much effort on internal and procedural issues rather than those that actually impact the student body. While our meetings do appear to the outside observer as a complicated ballet of parliamentary procedure, the fact of the matter is procedure serves as the lubricant to the well-oiled machine that is the government. Although it may frustrate and at times stymie an individual, procedure ultimately protects the organization from making impulsive decisions without careful deliberation.

The fact that these criticisms persist year after year leads to one simple conclusion: more people should run for office. Several individuals have spent countless hours over the past few weeks espousing how bad of an organization we are yet remain unwilling to participate in any solution. They call DSG insular and a mere training ground for politicians but then claim it’s not their responsibility to run for office. Every person on this campus is highly intelligent and could figure out how to operate in DSG in a matter of weeks. Government should be comprised of dedicated members of each and every community. Our recent demographics survey demonstrated disparities between DSG and the student body in certain racial and socioeconomic categories. If more people ran for office, we might have a chance at narrowing that gap.

The final criticism I feel compelled to address here is that the organization prevents younger voices from being heard. It is the responsibility of each senator to take it upon his or herself to be vocal and demonstrate initiative in Senate. It is not our responsibility to make sure everyone feels comfortable enough to speak. Now, you might point out here that I was a signatory to a letter in January alleging that the exec board strong-armed senators into voting for a controversial resolution. You might also point out that I am the longest serving member of DSG, and a member of the exec board this year, so is it perhaps hypocritical of me to say that young senators need to be more vocal. Here is what I say in response: just as it is a senator’s responsibility to be vocal in meetings, it is our responsibility as members of the executive board to be vocal without crossing the line of strong-arming. That line is narrow, and represents a complicated balancing act, but one of which we must always be cognizant.