In a matter of five weeks, nine members of Hamilton College’s Student Assembly (SA) resigned from their positions, a 33% drop in the body’s total membership. To date, the resignations include Rep. Eric Cortes-Kopp ’22, Rep. Ele Sorensen ’23, Rep. Maya Mathews ’23, Rep. Joseph Han ’22, Rep.Melanie Geller’22, Rep. Fatima Oliva ’23, Parliamentarian Wriley Nelson ’22, Rep. Jungwon Kim ’23 and SA President Saphire Ruiz ’22. Additionally, former Vice President Kavya Crasta ’21 resigned in Spring 2021.

Sorensen, Mathews, Han and Geller were among five members who announced their resignations simultaneously on Monday, Sept. 27. Oliva, the fifth resignation on Sept. 27, was unavailable for an interview with

The Spectator.

The five resignations on Sept. 27 occurred one week after SA conducted a contentious confirmation hearing for Judicial Board (J Board) nominees. Following the meeting, SA released a “Statement on Minutes and Live Stream.” In this statement, they quoted a senior Hamilton official who said “the College has received a cease and desist letter based on remarks made at the meeting and the College has requested that the video be taken down pending further inquiry.” While Geller emphasized “none of us resigned because of the cease and desist,” she felt the confirmation hearing was indicative of SA’s broader issues.

When speaking to

The Spectator,

Geller, Han, Mathews and Sorensen all stressed that their collective resignation was not the result of one singular event, but instead a set of common concerns, such as mental health pressures, burnout and frustration over SA’s inability to affect change.

“I was actually aware of dreading the next night’s meeting,” says Sorensen. “It felt like I was wasting a lot of time and emotional energy on something that didn’t matter. There is no real ability for us to make change. It felt like there was no benefit to the campus community by me being there, and there was no benefit to myself of my being there, and I left each meeting angry.”

In terms of mental health, Han found that “there was no longer a boundary between being a student and being a Student Assembly member. It became really clear that they [the Executive Board] wanted me to prioritize being a Student Assembly member over being a student, and I was not willing to make such a commitment.”

Resignation letters from Cortes-Kopp, Ruiz and Crasta echo similar sentiments. Cortes-Kopp expressed “the simple fact is that I have nothing more to give to this organization that has relentlessly drained me of my energy.” Ruiz wrote, “I am exhausted, empty, and have nothing left to give” and Crasta “made this decision for the sake of my well-being and my mental health.”

Additionally, Sorensen, Geller, Mathews and Han all cited current SA President Eric Santomauro-Stenzel ’24 as one of their sources of frustration with SA. Santomauro-Stenzel was Vice President to Ruiz, and stepped into the role of President following Ruiz’s resignation.

“In the SA Constitution, the person chairing the meeting is not supposed to engage in the debate or state an opinion,” said Sorensen. “[Santomauro-Stenzel] probably talks more in meetings than anybody else. He talks well over other people. We might get one or two opportunities to talk, and he responds to every single comment every time someone raises their hand. We can’t have a debate amongst each other.”

When asked about his frequent speaking in SA meetings, Santomauro-Stenzel responded “I asked Wriley Nelson ’22, the Parliamentarian, early on in the semester if I could be able to speak myself. He said yes. Then he reversed that ruling, and I have abided by that [new] ruling.” However, Sorensen claims that in the meeting after Nelson reversed his original ruling, “not much changed.”

Mathews thinks “cancel culture” stifles productive conversation in meetings and prevents SA from being an effective body. “I feel like SA is a victim of cancel culture, in that it requires everyone to conform to whoever’s the loudest voice, or who seems to come across as the moral pillar.”

Geller experienced this culture first hand. “As someone who I think voiced the more moderate approach to things, it always felt like I was going up against the entire assembly. I feel like I respected everyone in the assembly and I did not feel like there was mutual respect.” Sorensen noted that “there’s a lot of censoring, implicit and explicit in what’s said and how it’s framed and who gets to talk and who matters.”

Geller qualified that “my issue with Eric [Santomauro-Stenzel] has nothing to do with politics. I think he has really good ideas and he’s an ambitious individual and I respect the work that he tries to take on.” Rather, Geller finds that his methods interfere with SA’s functioning. “If you’re going to be in a deliberative body and you need to have a discussion on things, people need to be not afraid to say what they want to say.”

Ruiz believes that structural problems within SA prevent it from acting as an effective body. “We did not realize how much the assembly had been neglected,” said Ruiz. “The constitution is a mess. It doesn’t make any sense whatsoever.”

Ruiz believes many of SA’s structural problems stem from an “intentional weakening on behalf of the College.” “Ultimately, I resigned because the extent to which the College has control over the assembly is horrible. They have their claws in deep,” says Ruiz. Ruiz caveated that while they are not the right person to “remove the claws,” future SA leaders may be able to do so.

The Spectator’s

investigation found numerous structural, procedural and social factors that contribute to SA’s current state. However, most conflicts stemmed from one common theme: a fundamental disagreement over the role of student government, which came to a head during a new J Board Confirmation process.

The Debate Over SA’s Role

There is a stark divide between Santomauro-Stenzel, Ruiz and the Hamilton Administration over what the role of student government should be. This divide exists between Assembly members as well. Santomauro-Stenzel and Ruiz argue that SA should hold genuine decision-making power over college processes. Others, like the administration, claim SA’s job is to be a communicative body or a “bridge” between students and administration.

“The role of SA is a communicative role,” says Sorensen. “Your responsibility is to use your communication ‘in’ to support the wants and needs of students. I think there’s a real argument to be made that SA should have more authority. But as it stands and as it’s historically stood, the power SA has gotten has come from goodwill between it and [the Hamilton] Administration.”

President Wippman agrees with Sorensen’s assessment. He cited the SA Constitution, stating that SA’s role is to “help the governing bodies of the College understand student opinions and sentiment… In the past, Student Assembly has worked collaboratively with the administration to enhance the services provided to students by the College. That kind of healthy, productive partnership benefits the entire Hamilton community.”

Santomauro-Stenzel rejects the idea that SA exists to be a “bridge” between students and administrators. “Whose interests are being served when the assembly acts as a middle man between students and the administration?” asks Santomauro-Stenzel. “Our job is to make the institution better serve our needs, not for us to serve the institution’s needs.”

Director of Community Standards Catherine Berryman feels it is important for students to “have a voice in the College,” but is unsure if SA should serve as that voice. “Some students see [SA] as the voice for students at the College. I’m not sure if that’s what SA has always been. I think this is something students need to decide — how they want to have a voice.” In the future, Berryman hopes that SA will work more collaboratively with her and her team when writing resolutions.

Santomauro-Stenzel and Ruiz believe that SA’s role should be consistent with the historical origins of student governments in the United States. “The concept of student governments came out of protest [in the 1960s and 70s],” says Ruiz. “[It] came out of an understanding that students should have power and deserve power.”

Santomauro-Stenzel thinks that the College is more likely to concern itself with profit margins than student needs. “It really is my strong feeling that this institution only changes its policies in ways that they wouldn’t otherwise when their image, their reputation, their bottom line or their legal liability comes into question. That’s what motivates them,” says Santomauro-Stenzel. With this understanding, Santomauro-Stenzel and Ruiz both emphasized the importance of SA being a voice independent from the administration. “Student Assembly is the only body on campus that is exclusively focused on and accountable to students. That is our job. Our job is to be here for students,” says Ruiz.

Ruiz and Santomauro-Stenzel’s understanding of student government is not new to Hamilton. In fact, articles from

The Spectator

in 1977 indicate that in Kirkland’s time, students were directly involved in the decision-making bodies on campus. For instance, the Kirkland Assembly (Kirkland’s governing body) consisted of students, faculty and administrators who made decisions together.

Over time, the College stifled the voices of Kirkland students in decision-making bodies. “In the late Spring of 1977, the faculty was given considerably more power over Kirkland’s academic activities,” said an article published in

The Spectator

on Oct 7, 1977. This decision grew out of concerns that the Kirkland Assembly was inefficient. “There is a desire in government to be democratic, and there is the desire to be efficient. The Kirkland Assembly proved more democratic than efficient,’’ said then-President Samuel Babbitt to

The Spectator

in 1977.

Santomauro-Stenzel hopes to bring decision-making power back to SA. “The role of the assembly should ultimately be, in my final vision of it, to have true governing power, and also an organizing body. A union, willing to mobilize students to achieve ends that the student body desires,” says Santomauro-Stenzel.

SA’s recent J Board confirmation hearing encapsulated the debate over SA’s role.

Judicial Board Confirmation Vote: Binding, or Just A Formality?

On Sept. 20, SA conducted a brand new process for confirming J Board members. According to Santomauro-Stenzel, SA Committee Chairs previously decided and voted upon this new process, which asked nominees to submit answers to a series of questions regarding their fit for office and subsequently attend an SA hearing prior to their confirmation.

The J Board is an adjudicative body of 10 students, three faculty members and two administrators or staff members. The J Board conducts hearings and issues decisions as part of the disciplinary process overseen by the Dean of Students office.

According to Berryman and the J Board bylaws, the current J Board selection process is as follows: a call goes out from the Dean of Students Office asking for volunteers to nominate themselves to serve on J Board. Nominees write a statement on why they should serve, which are sent to the sitting J Board members. Sitting members choose the new J Board members, whose names are then sent to SA for distribution and a confirmation vote.

While the SA Constitution designates SA as the final step in the Board process, in recent history, SA has voted to confirm J Board nominees as a mere formality.

“To my understanding, that [J Board Confirmation] was entirely a ‘yes-vote,’” Berryman.

In the Sept. 20 minutes, when Jackson Harris ’22 asked what would happen if SA voted down a J Board nominee, Berryman responded “there is no precedent for that.”

Santomauro-Stenzel wants to reclaim the binding nature of SA’s J Board confirmation vote and believes the “formality” of the confirmation vote is part of a larger pattern of power slowly shifting away from SA. “All areas where students currently have power, it needs to be safeguarded, and when the College is attempting to override the will of what is already within our constitution, it needs to be extremely hard-fought,” says Santomauro-Stenzel.

Santomauro-Stenzel and Ruiz developed their new J Board confirmation process in communication with members of Hamilton’s Senior Staff, including Associate Vice President for Student Affairs Jeff Landry and Dean of Students Terry Martinez.

Throughout their email chain, Martinez and Landry repeatedly objected to the proposed changes of the confirmation process. “I will once again reiterate that a hearing of any kind is not part of this process,” said Martinez. “Even if you have support from all members, it may not happen. You may change that process for next year, but these students did not agree to this when they accepted nominations. I suggest you have a closed session prior to Monday [Sept. 20] to discuss these candidates and make a decision. I caution you against any action that could be perceived as libel or slander.”

Santomauro-Stenzel expressed frustration with the administration’s objections to conducting a hearing and claimed the student body has historically been closely involved during the J Board selection process.

The Spectator

articles from the 1970s and 80s prove Santomauro-Stenzel right. On Feb. 6, 1970,

The Spectator

published proposed revisions to the J Board constitution, which were up for a vote via a campus-wide referendum. On Sept. 19, 1980, more proposed changes to the J Board Constitution were to be voted on by the student body. On Apr. 22, 1983,

The Spectator

published the platform of each J Board candidate up for election.

Ruiz was similarly frustrated, saying “the intention of the J Board confirmation process was for it to be an actual confirmation process. Yet, it has been operating as just a formality. And senior administration and other lower administrators refuse to acknowledge what the text actually says. They’re refusing to acknowledge and recognize and respect the authority of the assembly.”

The Sept. 20 Meeting and Concerns around Casimir Zablotski

On Sept 20, Santomauro-Stenzel and Ruiz ignored Martinez’s objection and went through with the confirmation process. Prior to this meeting, J Board nominees submitted answers to a number of questions posed by SA. SA voted to move into committees. Each committee was assigned to 1–2 nominees to evaluate for nomination to the J Board. These committees had access to their nominee’s responses to the written questions, and had a chance to pose additional questions. After review, committees recommended a “yes” or “no” vote, which was then voted upon by the entire assembly.

It was not until the beginning of the Sept. 20 meeting that SA members voted to move into committees. However, J Board nominees were already assigned to individual committees by this time. This decision concerned Han: “what I thought was weird, is that we had not voted yes, until that meeting, to move to committees. And yet, every single person had already been divided into a committee.”

Santomauro-Stenzel claims the Executive Board divided up nominees before the meeting to be prepared in the case they voted to move to subcommittees. This process was not entirely random. “We did sort Casimir specifically to the Justice and Equity committee based on concerns that we heard related to justice and equity,” says Santomauro-Stenzel.

According to Geller, there was “no rubric” or guidance for what committees should consider when making their decisions. “Between a lack of a rubric, committees not being able to see the answers of other people interviewed — so no idea for standardization — and no boundaries clearly set for what’s in bounds and what’s out of bounds for discussion, it was a recipe for disaster,” says Geller.

SA confirmed all the J Board nominees except one, Casimir Zablotski ’22, who was one of the nominees reviewed by the Justice and Equity Committee. During the meeting, SA voted to discuss Zablotski’s nomination in front of the Assembly, as well as anyone tuned in to SA’s Facebook Livestream. After discussion, SA voted against Zablotski by a margin of 20–0 with two abstentions.

The Spectator

reached out to Zablotski multiple times for comment but did not receive a response.

Sorensen was the Chair of the Justice and Equity Committee, the committee which conducted Zablotski’s hearing and recommended “no” for his confirmation. The committee reviewed two candidates in total, one of which they recommended “yes” to. Sorensen claims her “no” recommendation for Zablotski was based solely on his “weak” answers to SA’s questions. “The person who we voted yes had very detailed answers. They demonstrated a very clear understanding of campus processes and their role….and then we looked at the answers of the person [Zablotski] we voted no on, and after finishing them, we couldn’t clearly articulate why this person wanted to be on the J Board. We had this extreme polar of answers submitted, [there was a disparity in quality between the two sets of answers] and it felt like our responsibility [to vote no]. We couldn’t vouch for him because he didn’t give us anything to vouch for.”

Geller was surprised to hear that Sorensen voted against Zablotski based on his answers. “I read Casimir’s [answers] after I had seen my committee’s nominees, and when I read that the [Justice and Equity Committee] recommended no because of his answers, I was shocked. We have no rubric. And it became clear to me then, that this was a procedural error.”

Sorensen felt that they were kept in the dark about the significance of the procedural changes to the J Board Confirmation. “There was an implication given to me that we had an important job that SA had done for a very long time,” said Sorensen. “I learned only well after the fact of this whole thing that SA has confirmed everybody up until now. And if I had known that, I don’t know. I could have behaved differently — I certainly would have approached the situation differently.”

After the subcommittees’ initial reviews and recommendations, the candidates’ confirmation was brought for discussion in front of the full Assembly. The Assembly voted to discuss Zablotski, which is when the alleged defamation took place. While the Justice and Equity Committee recommended a “no” vote based on Zablotski’s answers alone, the meeting quickly opened up into a conversation around his character and beliefs.

“I had a bad feeling from the start that this was going to be targeting a more conservative student on campus for views that I didn’t think were relevant,” says Geller. Sorensen agrees that politics played no role in her decision-making process. “The aftermath of this incident turned into this big deal about what this kid’s politics might be, and who he is otherwise. But the Justice and Equity Committee didn’t discuss his politics. They didn’t come up, we didn’t discuss the other person’s politics, it wasn’t a factor. It didn’t need to be a factor. That doesn’t feel like our job,” says Sorensen.

Zablotski is the Editor-in-Chief of

The Enquiry

, a publication by The Alexander Hamilton Institute for the Study of Western Civilization (AHI).

The Enquiry

is overseen by Dr. Robert Paquette. In 2016

Reason

magazine, Dr. Pacquette was called “the only conservative professor at Hamilton.”

Santomauro-Stenzel rejects the idea that Zablotski’s political leanings or association with the AHI disqualified him for the J Board. “One’s association with the AHI is not automatically disqualifying. The repeated assertion that this vote was motivated by animosity towards the AHI is both inaccurate and ignorant of Zablotski’s own actions as an individual, for which he alone is responsible,” says Santomauro-Stenzel. “I, and likely many other members of the Assembly, would have voted “yes” had he, as an individual, not taken actions that called into question his judgment. Our vote held him acountable to what he said in print and distributed to the campus.” Santomauro-Stenzel is referring to multiple

Enquiry

articles published under Zablotski’s leadership that spurred negative responses from the campus community.

Santomauro-Stenzel took particular issue with an article written by Zablotski titled “The Internet and Cultural Rot” where he discussed a then-recent murder of a young woman in Utica, NY. “Bianca seems to have been what is colloquially known as an “e-girl”: a woman who extensively documents her daily life online for attention, and consequently has a dedicated online following of men,” wrote Zablotski. “Often, e-girls take pleasure in manipulating hordes of men.”

In reference to this section, Santomauro-Stenzel says “as written, I think it is reasonable to conclude that the author feels Bianca was at least partially responsible for her own death, as he directly implies a causal relationship between her “manipulation” of the murderer and the “frustration” that drove him to kill her. I feel these comments assign a level of blame to the victim of the murder, and I am thoroughly disgusted by that implication; victim-blaming a woman for her own sexually motivated murder is incredibly misogynistic.”

Currently, Santomauro-Stenzel’s primary concern on this front is whether the College will honor the Assembly’s vote against Zablotski. “The biggest battle right now is whether or not the College commits to honoring the vote of the assembly on the Judicial Board nominee who was voted down 20–0. If they’re willing to disregard that, that demonstrates not only do they [the Hamilton Administration] not want us to have power, but they don’t even care about their own policy.”

When

The Spectator

asked Berryman whether the College would respect SA’s vote, she declined to comment.

SA’s Relationship with The Hamilton Administration

The J Board confirmation process illuminated that tension exists between members of SA and Hamilton’s senior administrators. These tensions boiled over in SA’s conversation with Berryman on Sept. 20, when members questioned the nature of her role on SA’s J Board confirmation vote. “I wouldn’t talk to a peer like that,” says Sorensen in reference to the way in which some SA representatives spoke to Berryman.

Geller, Sorensen and Mathews all voiced concerns about how Santomauro-Stenzel and Ruiz have interacted with administrators. In reference to SA’s interactions with administrators in previous years, Mathews says “when we invited administration in for meetings, we wouldn’t yell at them and tell them they’re bad at their job, which is what we do now.” In addition, Geller says “I think there are valid critiques of the administration. I think Catherine Berryman showed us that… my main concern [now] is how we approach the administration.”

Ruiz rejects the idea that SA should always show the utmost respect to the administration, and cites respectability politics as a driving cause of their resignation. The theory of respectability politics argues that marginalized groups often practice deference and respect out of self-preservation, and are silenced in the process. “As a Black, and trans, and queer, and fat, and autistic, and mentally ill person, there are all kinds of pressures on me to be the most respectful person in the room and to appease as much as I possibly can,” says Ruiz.

Ruiz found the respect to be one-sided, saying, “It was just so obvious that they [the Hamilton administration] did not care. They did not respect me, they were not invested in the wellbeing of students in any way shape or form.”

Ruiz believes their interactions with some members of Hamilton’s senior staff will continue to affect their well-being. They wrote in their presidential resignation letter that the “amount of trauma that I have experienced at the hands of this institution and people in it will take years to process and heal from.”

Santomauro-Stenzel believes that there is a larger pattern of administrators disrespecting students. Santomauro-Stenzel claims that one example of this disrespect are statements made by Vice President for Enrollment Management Moniza Inzer published in a recent

Spectator

investigation. Santomauro-Stenzel claims,“[Inzer] implies students lack the knowledge or agency to make informed choices for themselves [and] clearly demonstrates a pattern of disrespect for student voices and decisions… Her comments are far from an outlier; I have heard comments like hers in numerous meetings and exchanges with some individuals in senior administration and the Board of Trustees since Fall 2019. How are we to collaborate with those who don’t view us as adults capable of making rational decisions, and who themselves clearly do not have respect for us?”

Looking forward, the future of SA is unclear. Santomauro-Stenzel hopes that during this semester, the student body will decide what role it wants the student government to play, and what that role will look like. Some current and former SA members are looking to energetic underclassmen to take up the mantle. “The first-years are amazing. I have so much hope in them,” says Ruiz. “2025, they’re amazing. They all do great work,” says SA Treasurer Felix Tager. “I place my faith in the Class of 2025,” wrote Cortes-Kopp.

Geller is pensive about the future given SA’s current tenuous relationship with the administration. “I don’t know how quickly this relationship will mend,” says Geller.