Volume 67, Issue 3

YSU President Shai Barnea: Serving or Severing the Student Body?

by Kevin Cyrulnik

All would agree that the President of the United States is elected to serve the people.  At all times, with each and every decision, he is obligated to uphold that which is in the best interest of his nation.  The Constitution was created to ensure that no President would ever have the power to take advantage of his country.  A university or large institution must function in the same manner if it wishes to succeed.  Unfortunately for the students of Yeshiva University, they have, indeed, been taken advantage of – and worse – many of them do not even know it.

I approached our school “president” before the semester began and asked him to explain the general protocol for appointing justices to the student court.  He responded that it is the duty of the president to select student justices.  At that point, he immediately interjected that he would certainly not choose me for the position.  Although I had not even expressed interest in applying for the position, I, nevertheless, decided to bite.  When I asked why, he said that he was not interested in putting “commie people on the court.”  His reasoning played on the familiar notion of “share the wealth.”  Since I was already rising through the ranks of the school paper, he felt that other students should be given their fair shot at succeeding.  I am fairly confident that I do not need to elaborate on this ridiculously errant reasoning.  I’m all for everyone getting their fair opportunity.  But if some are motivated and succeed more than others, I cannot conceive of a single reason why he should be impeded.

Nevertheless, I continued to pursue this issue at the outset of the year.  After all, the “president” cannot create and enforce fake laws that do not exist; he is governed by strict guidelines dictating what he can and cannot do.  After the “president” appointed a chief justice, which happened to be six weeks after the commencement of the semester when, in reality, he is mandated to do so at the very first student council meeting of the year, I applied for the position to the student court, just like everyone else.  I was told by the chief justice that the “president” had agreed that being on the newspaper staff would pose a conflict of interest to the student court position.  They had therefore already decided, before any interviews began, that no member of the Commentator staff would be appointed to the court.  It seemed as though the “president” had altered his objection and subsequent rejection of my being appointed to the court.  He apparently realized that his original reasoning was impulsive and unjustifiable.

My rebuttal was simple – probably something along the lines of what anyone in this country would say had they witnessed a violation: our school “president” and student body representative had blatantly violated the school constitution.  There is absolutely no rule detailing a conflict of interest in this case.  When confronted, the “president” even admitted that the constitution contradicts his reasoning.  In fact, the constitution does clearly delineate certain exclusions for students holding student council or Commentator-governing board positions, which would inevitably pose a conflict of interest.  This is even greater proof that the makers of this constitution did not see a news editor (someone not on the governing board) as conflicting with being a justice on the court.  Yet the “president” chose to ignore that in favor of advancing his own interest. 

Moreover, there has recently been much controversy over the circumstances surrounding the dismissal of the BMP and JSS presidents.  Apparently, both were ineligible for the position, and were subsequently removed from office.  The “president” claimed that Yeshiva was bound to follow the constitution, which mandated certain requirements for the presidency, which these students did not meet.  He repeatedly stated that there are no options here because we must uphold the constitution.  A proposed solution was given to the “president” but, again, he rejected it on the grounds of it being unconstitutional.

It seems extremely ironic that the “president” would be so intent on upholding the constitution on some points, while completely ignoring it within the context of others.  Certainly, this should not be condoned from the students who elected him. 

Perhaps the “president” felt that one student could not handle both responsibilities of being on the newspaper staff and the court, simply because he could not.  Last year, he was appointed as the Secretary General for YUNMUN, while holding the position of Features Editor of The Commentator.  Apparently, he could not handle the responsibilities of both positions and therefore “left” The Commentator staff.  Do his own actions and findings give him the right to assume that others will act in the exact same fashion?  Just because he could not physically do both jobs certainly does not preclude others from trying and succeeding. 

This kind of behavior has continued for long enough and it is my duty to inform my fellow students that they have been taken advantage of.  It is true that his selfish behavior has not harmed or affected every student at this university.  But it has affected many, and has the potential to impinge upon the rights of all.  If in our society we discovered that the President of the United States was ignoring and dodging the constitution, not a single one of us would stand for it.  I hope that our constitution was not written in vain, but has real meaning and value.  If that is the case, we cannot and should not allow this manipulation and lying to continue. 

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