Joe Harris

Unfortunately, I was at the Executive Forum on Wednesday. It was my job to cover it for this paper in an unbiased manner, so I will not take a side here.

What I want to do is express my embarrassment towards both sides of the Student Government Association presidential impeachment debate. Both sides acted, at times, with an extreme lack of maturity.

Those who attended and were in favor of impeachment brought no accusations or constitutional violations. Instead, many just resorted to taking cheap shots to Butler about his felony conviction.

Attendees in favor of Butler were just as guilty by playing up the race card as a motivating factor. The race card will neither impeach nor defend Butler in an impeachment hearing and is totally irrelevant to the issue.

With both sides having their own agendas, and KDNL TV busting in midway through, the forum was reduced mostly to a screaming contest with Butler as its master of ceremony. Students resorted to making their own political statements instead of asking Butler pertinent questions. This wasn't a pep rally people; this is possibly a man's position on the line.

For those in favor of impeaching Butler, your task is clearly written in the constitution. To start impeachment proceedings, you either need a written petition signed by 5 percent of the student body (604 students) or a written petition signed by 2/3 of the SGA assembly.

Then comes the tricky part--you must then find a constitutional violation to impeach him on. Being a convicted felon and having it all over the national media is not a constitutional violation. Butler's opposition wasted a perfectly good opportunity to do some research and come to the forum with constitutional questions.

Those in favor of Butler are equally as guilty for not doing their homework. What will save Butler is what he has accomplished already in his time in office, what he plans to do during the rest of his term, and how he plans to accomplish it.

Saying UM-St. Louis is a racist institution doesn't exactly defend Butler's actions as SGA president. In fact, it has little place here in this debate.

Possibly, the one good thing that came from the forum is that there is a clear discrepancy in the perceptions between cultures on this campus, and this actually may be where much of the problem lies. There is a lack of communication, not just between the SGA office and the student body, but among the students themselves.

I personally am surprised Butler hasn't made better understanding between cultural groups on the UM-St. Louis campus one of his goals. Maybe it took the forum to bring it out in the open. Maybe Butler feels his current goals are more important than this. However, this is becoming a major issue, and it needs to be addressed.

Butler is fond of talking about his battle against increased student fees, but maybe he should start talking more about cultural understanding. After all, if it affects the students, it should affect the student body president.