May 6, 2024
Content Warning: Fascism, Racism
The end of the 2024 ASUO election was marked by the winning of Mariam Hassan and Kiki Akpakwu after the presidential and vice presidential candidates of the UO Student Power slate dropped out right before a planned run off. It was an unceremonious end to a fraught, contentious election cycle with many ups and downs. The dust hasn’t settled yet, as some of the actions committed by candidates and others involved in campaigns have perpetuated serious harm.
Before the elections even started, ASUO was in hot water for its concert being planned on the same weekend as the Mother’s Day Powwow for the second year in a row. This led to each different slate, aka glorified party platforms created by students, pledging to enact change and to have better communication with cultural organizations to prevent other incidents like that happening again. One of the slates, Flock Forward, was especially under scrutiny due to many of its candidates being directly involved or aware of the concert planning. This made them dead in the water fairly early. OurUO was in the lead, but did have some competition from UO Student Power, a slate being led by leadership from UO Students Workers and YSDA. Their supporters lauded UOSP for having detailed plans on how to improve the university for students, informed by their organizing experience and leftist politics.
Some cracks began to show thanks to critiques of UOSP presidential candidate Max Jensen. He was one of the main organizers of the Angela Davis talk that happened in March, which suffered from poor planning and overcrowded conditions that led to thousands of hopeful attendees being crushed against each other or turned away. Additionally, MCC invited UOPD which is not only disrespectful to Angela Davis, but also deterred many students, especially students of color, from staying. That is only a brief summary of the problems, others including accessibility issues as well as discomfort from many attendees who felt that the event was overly profiteering off of Angela Davis’ presence. Unfortunately, the statement provided by the ROAR about the event was withdrawn from The Insurgent in the wake of the event.
One of the more shocking pieces of information to come out was about the OurUO campaign. Last year, Hassan and Akpakwu went to an all expenses paid conference hosted by the Campus Victory Project. CVP is an arm of Turning Point USA, a far right organization whose mission is to act as a fascist agitator on college campuses around the country.
They have made several appearances at UO and in the Eugene area before, including an event on campus in February 2023 where two TPUSA affiliated speakers engaged in intense arguments with attendees that almost led to physical fighting. They thrive on a persecution complex; whenever they come to progressive areas like Eugene, they want to ignite controversy and violence, then moan about “liberal intolerance.” When Charlie Kirk, the leader of TPUSA, came to UO in 2018, video cameras were all around him. He wanted students to approach him and argue, and then use the footage to fan the flames of his troll empire.
In a leaked Campus Victory Project flier, it’s stated that their “first and primary goal is to commandeer the top office of Student Body President at each of the most recognizable and influential American universities.” This includes Pac 12 institutions. It’s obvious that CVP targeted Hassan and Akpakwu specifically as part of their goals. It doesn’t take much to identify that CVP is a conservative endeavor either. Their website is adorned with a bald eagle and stars and stripes, and the name itself comes from the long tradition of authoritarians treating ideology as a battlefield that they must “win.”
In OSU’s student government election in February, there were multiple issues with candidates being influenced by CVP. The Daily Barometer, the campus newspaper, wrote a story with quotes from several anonymous sources in the student government that expressed their concerns about CVP money being involved in the election. This was never proven, but TPUSA certainly has the time and money to spare. Every year, they receive millions of dollars from conservative interests. If this level of involvement can happen 30 miles up the road from Eugene, it’s not a far stretch to see it impacting here.
Kirk, who has never attended a university a day in his life, has spoken about his aims of hijacking student governments many times. At one conference in 2015, he stated: “We’re not going to change the professor’s mind. You’re not going to get teachers fired. The only vulnerability there is, the only little opening, is student-government-association races and elections, and we’re investing a lot of time and energy and money in it.”
After the news of the two OurUO candidates attending the CVP conference came out, they released a statement on April 6. “As two women of color, we were appalled to hear any connection made between us and this organization; this is damaging, and dangerous for Mariam considering the social climate we are in.” After all, TPUSA proudly expresses its pro-Israel and islamaphobic views. It supports Trump and also hosts many events with Kyle Rittenhouse, who committed a racist shooting during a BLM protest in Kenosha Wisconsin, portraying him as a hero. OurUO’s statement ends by saying “we are extremely disheartened by this situation.”
It’s hard not to be disheartened. From all angles, this is disturbing. The new ASUO president and vice president were intentionally targeted by a far-right organization. While the candidates should have researched the organization more, TPUSA and their almost decade-long effort to upend student governments is insidious and won’t end any time soon. They will continue to try to get student leaders to attend their events, whether they know who TPUSA really are or not. With the amount of dark money pouring into their coffers, their efforts are relentless and everyone with an interest in student government and the funding they control needs to look out for their influence.
On Friday of election week, the Election Board began to be barraged by grievances filed by all three slates. Student Power’s campaign manager filed multiple grievances against the other slates, including one accusing Flock Forward of animal abuse for one of its members bringing out their pet bunny to the EMU.
One of which resulted in UOSP being completely barred from campaigning, though it was rescinded to allow them to campaign only online. This type of behavior reflected poorly on an otherwise serious campaign. It was hard to see them as any better when they engaged in the same mudslinging and petty behavior as the usual ASUO suspects. This made the last few days of the election very chaotic, with grievances and accusations being slung back and forth.
On top of bogus grievances, the most unethical part of UOSP’s campaign was their “endorsements” from UOSW and SJP. Both endorsements were only verified by the leaders of each organization, so they hardly have enough support to carry the weighty title of an entire student organizations’ approval (and although they do not claim to have the whole organization, that is more often the assumption when such endorsements are flamboyantly posted online to prove the validity of the campaign). This enables a thorough misrepresentation of the endorsing student groups, and it points out the performativity of the entire ordeal.
Additionally, while it makes logical sense for UOSW to endorse, as they are ideologically aligned with UOSP due to the large number of members on the slate being members of UOSW and YDSA, asking for an SJP endorsement is entirely unfounded. Not only did campaign manager Ian Finn display a disappointing lack of understanding and coherence when discussing SJP’s goals and needs, before and after the endorsement was retracted, but also the presidential candidate Jensen himself never made in-person contact with leader Salem Khoury throughout the entire election cycle, despite frequenting the same spaces on a daily basis.
A total of three grievances were filed in the duration of this incident. The first was filed by OurUO on behalf of SJP, because after quickly retracting their endorsement and stating that they wanted to maintain neutrality in the election, an Instagram post announcing SJP’s endorsement of UOSP was still posted and not removed promptly. Then, escalating the situation, rather than accepting SJP’s stance, UOSP quickly rebutted with a counter grievance about SJP’s edited chat messages, ignoring the sentiments of the actual leaders, while instead nitpicking the details of the first grievance.
The final grievance was filed after Jensen finally cracked, screaming at Khoury, yelling about how she “ruined his chance at the election,” and further stating that he had no concern for SJP nor did he care about the negative impact the useless grievances had on SJP, all as six members/supporters of UOSP silently sat and watched without intervening. It was only after two uninvolved individuals pleaded with him again and again to cease the yelling and aggressive behavior that he finally agreed to leave the space. Although not before shooting last minute derogatory comments to those who had stood up against his outburst. It was after this incident that the UOSP slate urged Jensen to step down from the running, leaving Hassan as the winner.
The sheer greed and commodification of students and student organizations in this election cycle, particularly displayed by UOSP who has yet to acknowledge their disrespect to Khoury, co-leader Salem Younes, and allied members of SJP, is appalling. Demanding an endorsement from an uninvolved Palestinian Solidarity organization further shows the problematic and damaging nature of ASUO elections, and how they dramatically fail students.
The turnout in the election was higher than last year’s, but still shamefully low. The student body is disengaged and ASUO lets this happen by not allowing organizations to speak about the election and only allowing posters in certain areas of campus. The election isn’t “distracting” as they claim; it determines who’s in control of the purse strings of the millions of dollars of Incidental Fee money.
The amount of mudslinging and harassment that has taken place in this election is staggering. It’s been obvious from the beginning that all ASUO elections are an opportunity for stroking egos and jockeying for positions that look good on resumes, but this has made it all the more clear. There was also long harm done to people in and around the campaigns all for the sake of a student government election. That’s not to say it isn’t important, but let’s remember our priorities.
Following the runoff, UOSP won a majority in the senate. Despite the issues at the top, it was great to see this roster of candidates win out. They will hopefully bring a needed kick to student government and its actions. First and foremost, to facilitate greater use of the money under ASUO’s control, but also more transparency in general. While there were many issues throughout the whole election, this is the best resolution given the circumstances.