UCCS student president could face impeachment
David Williams, student body president at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, could be ousted from that post as a result of a Judicial Board ruling Tuesday.
After deliberating for three days, the nine-member board of students determined that Williams discriminated against Spectrum, a gay, lesbian, bisexual and transsexual student group, by not signing off on a request for funding from student fees. Williams cited personal views, beliefs and convictions as the reason for his decision.
Articles of impeachment could be brought against Williams by a student government association member, said Estivins Campos, vice chief justice of the Judicial Board. Senior anthropology major Jack Student has drafted a recall petition to remove Williams from office. A recall requires signatures of 10 percent of the student body, roughly 800 students.
"I don't think it will be tough to get the signatures," Student said. "He's discriminated against the gay community on campus."
A student body president has not been removed from office in recent history, said UCCS spokesman Tom Hutton.
Williams said the Judicial Board decision "chips away at an individual's right to free speech and free thought," adding, "it also demonstrates that a particular group, when offended, can complain and wrongfully get their way."
Williams said he no longer feels safe exercising his First Amendment rights and will hire a lawyer to protect him "from discriminatory action" by Spectrum, the student government and the campus administration. Williams will give an annual state of the campus address Friday.
The ruling also included a finding that Williams was not in violation of the school's mandate that student leaders be objective in making funding decisions using activity fees, which amount to $120,000 to $140,000 collected from students annually, and that those fees be distributed equally to student clubs and groups.
That prompted Chancellor Pam Shockley-Zalabak to issue a letter Tuesday to the student government association calling for a three-year audit of student activity fee expenditures and a review of the student constitution and bylaws to determine if they are in compliance with U.S. Supreme Court rulings on student activity fees.
In a formal hearing Thursday, Williams said he stands by his decision not to put his signature on a $2,100 proposal from Spectrum to fund the group's National Coming Out Day observance. The event was held on campus in October.
Williams argued that even though he did not give his approval, he also did not veto the budget request because he believes Spectrum is entitled to funding through the student government association. Because he didn't veto the request, the student constitution allowed it to pass automatically after five school days.
That, he said, was his way of representing all students while protecting his personal beliefs.
"My job is to represent the entire student body, which includes Spectrum and people who think the way I do," he said. "I believe what I did was right and fair."
Spectrum members argued that by singling out their group, Williams was not being objective because he had signed off on funding requests from other campus clubs and organizations at the same meeting in late September.
"Funding an organization should not be dependent on viewpoint. He's abused his position of power," Crystal Duckhorn, co-chair of Spectrum, told the Judicial Board. "It caused students to feel unsupported and unrepresented by their student government."
Duckhorn said the five-day delay of Spectrum's funding request denied the organization the time to acquire and hand out buttons at its event, a major component of the observance. Budget proposals that follow the guidelines and benefit the entire student body should be approved, regardless of one person's beliefs, she said.
