Volume 67, Issue 3  

Incompetence Means No Presidents for JSS, SBMP
by Alexander Chester

A new constitution, a Student Services shake-up, honest mistakes, and assumptions by a number of people have resulted in leaving half of Wilf Campus undergraduates without a president representing their Jewish Studies Programs.  Both the Stone Beit Medrash Program (SBMP) and the James Striar School (JSS) are currently six weeks into the semester but do not have presidents on their respective student council boards. 

In the elections last spring, there was no candidate for the presidency of either JSS or SBMP. According to the constitution, the dependency at that point is on a write-in candidate. Khashayar Hakimian, Sy Syms (SSSB) Junior, wanted to be JSS President, but he did not apply in time for the position, and he did not have the required signatures on his petition. Hence, he was told by Canvassing Committee Chairman and Yeshiva College Senior, Jonathan Mantell, that, if he wanted to run, he could do so only as a write-in. Hakimian did just that, and subsequently won the election.

YC Junior Jon Cohen, meanwhile, was more of an impulse candidate. According to Cohen, since no one else was running, and he was willing and able to do a good job, he wrote his name in and had a few friends do the same. Suddenly, it turned out that Cohen had won his election as well.

According to the constitution, the president of a Jewish Studies Program must be a senior in good standing who has been in that program for, at least, four semesters. Hakimian is not a senior, and Cohen had not fulfilled either of those requirements. 

Under the normal verification process, after a candidate has applied to run for a position, the canvassing committee goes to Student Services to confirm the candidate’s validity. Obviously, a write-in candidate cannot be verified before the election. Hence, if a write-in candidate wins the election, his confirmation is supposed to be done immediately after counting the ballots, before the election results are announced.

Theoretically, if the winning write-in candidate is ineligible (i.e. he is not in good standing), the eligible write-in candidate with the most votes wins the elections. The possibility of “bumping” everybody up, whereby the vice president would become president, treasurer/secretary would become vice president, etc., is unconstitutional. An elected official must have won the election for the position he holds. If the president is unable to fulfill his duties, a new election must be held.

This past Yeshiva election, however, nobody checked the validity of the two write-in candidates who prevailed. According to YC Junior Danny Ackerman, who has since taken over control of the canvassing committee, the committee never used to check write-in candidates; it just happened that they were always eligible. “There is no official way of keeping track of who the elected officials are in this school,” said Ackerman. Cohen and Hakimian “made the mistake of voting themselves in without checking their eligibilities.”   However, Ackerman concedes that, in reality, it is not the responsibility of a candidate, but rather of the canvassing committee, to check.

After the ballots were tallied, Mantell discovered that Hakimian was ineligible for the presidency and thus immediately informed him.  Cohen, on the other hand, was not informed of his ineligibility right away.  Over the summer, months after the election, there was an attempt to contact Cohen. But according to Yeshiva Student Union President Shai Barnea, two things happened that impeded this process. The first was the Student Services shake-up, in which Avi Rosman was fired. The second was the existence of a second Jonathan M. Cohen (Cohen’s full name) at Yeshiva University. Barnea claims that he spoke with Rosman over the summer, and was told that there was a second Jon Cohen.  Students were left wondering, “why the correct Jon Cohen was not contacted when the school realized that there was a second Cohen?” observed Yeshiva College Junior Joey Averbook.  It is believed that after Rosman was fired, nobody followed up his work, and somehow the whole issue fell through the cracks.

With Cohen still believing that he was the SBMP president, he assumed the post accordingly.  Over the summer the orientation handbook was sent to a couple thousand students, noting one event during the orientation Shabbat, with SBMP President Jon Cohen making a speech introducing Rabbi Meir Goldvicht.

On Friday, the day before Cohen was slated to speak, Barnea had finally informed him that he was not the president of SBMP ,and the orientation guide had been mistaken. Associate Dean of Students Dr. Chaim Nissel says that the guide was put out by Student Services and Public Relations, and they were not informed about Cohen in time (halfway through the summer) to fix the mistake.

Many students attempted to sympathize with what occurred, attributing the mistakes to accidents.  What they cannot understand, however, is “why even after the committee realized that Hakimian and Cohen were both ineligible, they didn’t name new presidents for JSS and SBMP.  That should have been the next logical step,” noted one student leader. 

When asked why the next eligible write-in candidate was not appointed, Ackerman responded, “we burned the ballots already.”  The canvassing committee had destroyed the ballots the moment they announced the winners, not expecting illegitimate candidates.

At this point, Cohen and Hakimian are still arduously fighting to be reinstituted as their respective classes’ presidents.  Hakimian has proposed to swap positions with the current elected Vice President, Lavian, but Barnea maintains that is certainly unconstitutional.

“This is all unprecedented – there’s a new constitution, there’s no past precedent, and a bunch of people were really irresponsible. That’s why we’re in this situation,” says Ackerman.

The case is now set to go to student court. However, as of yet, Barnea has failed to appoint justices to comprise the student court, six weeks after commencement of the semester.  He has selected YC Senior Ari Erdfarb to be chief justice, but Erdfarb refused to comment on any cases that are possible cases he will try except to say that he has the right to accept or reject any cases. When asked what will happen if Erdfarb were to refuse to take the case, Barnea says he would have to “reexamine the options available.”

Much of the JSS and SBMP student body is bewildered by the current state of events. Most do not care much for constitutional law and would just like to see someone take the position as quickly as possible.

SBMP Vice President Jonathan Hoenig (YC Senior) disagrees; he thinks it is not fair for Cohen to become president. “Though I’m sure he would do a great job, there are a whole handful of guys who wanted to run but weren’t eligible. I don’t think it’s fair to install him because a whole bunch of other people never got the same opportunity.”

Barnea has clearly expressed his opinion that neither candidate has the right to be named president.  He believes their campaigns are undoubtedly unconstitutional, and rule of law must be followed even if not always popular. This is a popular sentiment among the more knowledgeable end of the student body, and likely the court. But the candidates have said that they fear that Barnea’s influence on the court, specifically in the realm of appointing justices –  most of whom will undoubtedly be his friends – will hurt their cases.  The court will likely hear the case in the next week.

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