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| CSG President Cooper Charlton speaking at a CSG executive meeting (Samii Stoloff/Daily) |
In this first entry of my blog series “The Failure of
Central Student Government,” I will argue that the Central Student Government
(CSG) at the University of Michigan democratically fails in properly and wholly
representing the student body and our concerns. Throughout this post, I will
make my case using concrete examples of actions taken by CSG over the past few
years that show the organization’s representative failures. I will back these
real life examples up with theory from democratic theorists studied in
Political Science 406. Later blog posts in this series will present my solution
to this representative democracy problem and outline how the solution can be
practically implemented at the University of Michigan. But first, here is how
our student government is failing us.
CSG, via its makeup and actions, does not represent
all of the student body. Specifically, they fail to represent minorities on
campus. A prime example of this under representation comes from the disbandment of
the Campus Inclusion Commission (CIC) this past November. This commission was
created to be a platform for minority students to have a voice in CSG executive
business, but ultimately disbanded after the commission members felt that “CSG’s efforts
to make campus more inclusive weren’t entirely genuine.” I
interviewed Sindhu, a former member of the CIC and a woman of color, to get her
thoughts on CSG and its ability to represent all students. When asked about CSG
representation, she responded, “I do not think that CSG, as an
organization, represents all students on campus.” She did stress, though, that
she felt this way after having worked with the executive branch of CSG only,
not the legislative or judicial branch. She went on to say that elected
officials should “attend ally trainings and trainings that focus on
inclusionary practices…” as a solution to the under representativeness of CSG “…but
this won’t solve everything.” As I mentioned, she and the other CIC members
disbanded the commission when they felt their efforts were ignored. By ignoring
CIC, a commission designed to allow minority students to have a voice in their
government, CSG fails to be a true representative of all student voices.
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| Protest Outside Union After CSG Declines to Vote (Terra Molengraff/Daily) |
CSG also ran into another issue of
representation in 2014 when they voted in front of a packed public Assembly
meeting to table a controversial issue indefinitely and refused to hear some
students thoughts and concerns on it. 250 students showed up to voice their
thoughts and CSG blatantly ignored the voices of their people they were elected
to represent.
CSG also has no real ability to represent the student
body’s concerns at the Board of Regents level of the University. The Board
currently does not have a student member with voting rights. The CSG President
only provides updates to the Board. This fails to allow students to have a meaningful
and powerful say in the university they pay and attend. This problem was
evident when students were left
off the presidential search committee and were only able to give mere
suggestions to the committee.
From representation, other failures arise. These failures fit with 2 of the 4 representative democracy failures that Przeworski outlines in his paper. The current CSG system has been plagued with the incapacity to create effective participation and therefore represent all students. This failure is easy to see in voter turnout numbers. In 2013, only 5.6% of LSA students voted. In 2015, only 20.9% of the student body voted. These numbers show that a vast majority of the student body isn’t being heard. Further, CSG is incapable of assuring government is doing what it should. This is because representatives create new parties every year to avoid accountability or the reps are seniors who graduate. Over my four years here, there have typically been two new parties every single year. Examples include: OurMichigan, YourMichigan, MForward, NewMich, ForUM, The Team, and Make Michigan. These examples show that CSG fails to be an effective representative democracy for students, and some solution must be presented to fix these issues.
In my next post, I will propose that Central Student Government be removed and replaced with a direct democracy as a solution to the democratic problems mentioned above.
[Edited 4/13/2016 to correct text format, add interview, and improve clarity]
Is the lack of student representation on the Board of Regents a failure of CSG or a failure from the Board of Regents themselves? That is a really good point, that the students don't have a say, but how does that get fixed? Can CSG fix it, or is that decision, student representation on the Board, up the Board of Regents as well?
ReplyDeleteAlaina,
DeleteI think the issue of no student representation on the Board of Regents is a failure of both the Board and CSG. I think you're right in that most of the blame for the lack of student representation on the Board falls on the Board itself, but I think some blame still lies with CSG. The Board's failure is a willful failure I think. They sometimes put other interests before the students' interests, and I think a student representative would disrupt this. So, they willfully choose not to allow students a meaning vote on the board. Regarding CSG's responsibility, as I said, I think some blame can still be placed on them. Every year, a party (or parties) campaigns with the platform to get a student on the board, but this discussion usually dies down after the election. A meaningful push to get on the board is never made. It seems CSG realizes the amount of effort it would take, so they just settle with monthly briefings of the Board by the CSG President.
I totally see your point, and yes, it is partly on the Board and CSG, and then if CSG has a platform that discusses getting a student on the board and then they ignore it or forget about it, that is there fault. However, I think if we are being fair, that is also partly the fault of the student body. If we as a student body elect a party based off a certain platform and then never follow up with our expectations as voters, or allow the party to change their ideals, whose fault is that? I do not think the student body here does a very good job of holding CSG to the promises and changes they say they are going to make, which allows CSG to fail as a whole. We as voters need to be more aware to make CSG more effective.
DeleteJohn,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading this initial post, especially because I have found myself wondering many of the same things. At least from my personal experience, the majority of the Student Representatives themselves stem from a very "similar" background, that being the Greek Life system.
As disappointing as it is, I agree with you that change must be made to our central student government. The elections have become more of a popularity contest than anything, and the election tickets rarely include the names of representatives outside of the Greek Life system. I've done some research, and found that the Greek Life community takes up roughly 21% of the undergraduate population. Again, the tickets include way more than 21% Greek Life candidates, making this an even more deeply rooted issue than I had thought.
Finally, it was great that you mentioned the shifting of the parties from year to year. It can be very difficult to continue down a path towards improvement, if we cannot establish parties through which to implement change. I had also noticed this year that the names of the parties had changed, yet many of their representatives changed the same. In a system that is already in turmoil, this year to year volatility does not help in establishing a solid governmental body.