At UMKC, a student-government scandal is a lesson in Politics 101
Student government is an oxymoron.
Students don’t govern. A student body’s elected leaders get an activities budget, and they decide how to spend it. The rest is just theater. Or practice.
But while its outcomes are largely irrelevant, student government matters, if only because it’s a proving ground for future political elites.
Richard Nixon was the student body president at Whittier College. Karl Rove served two terms as council president at a high school in a Salt Lake City suburb. As a fraternity brother with permed hair, Sam Brownback led Kansas State University’s student government.
Hillary Clinton was the president of her senior class at Wellesley College, while Bill Clinton lost an equivalent election at Georgetown University.
Our political systems are dominated by people who pursued elected office and its trappings at young ages. And those systems don’t operate very well, in part because many of the decision makers don’t seem to be able to feel emotions, such as humility and regret, that keep most of us grounded. Indeed, to watch the process is to wonder whether student government, where so many of our leaders get their start, is less a laboratory for democracy than a finishing school for narcissists.
This column will describe events related to the University of Missouri-Kansas City’s student government. An effort will be made to keep the “governing” details to a minimum because, well, who cares. While the shenanigans may appear trivial, it’s worth remembering that today’s student-government leader makes tomorrow’s decisions about war and health care.
Three years ago, the Student Government Association at UMKC appointed Bridgett Johnson, an ambitious undergraduate studying political science, its election director.
Johnson’s term ended prematurely. Some members of the student government thought that Johnson had a conflict of interest because, as election director, she had circulated a petition on behalf of the debate and mock-trial teams, to which she also belonged.
After her term as election director ended, Johnson felt that she was owed an additional $1,000 for her work. The Student Government Association declined to pay. So Johnson petitioned a student-run court that operates on campus.
Tim Collins, an undergrad with an interest in law, agreed to represent Johnson. Johnson and Collins agreed that Collins would receive 20 percent of whatever Johnson was able to recover.
On February 25, 2008, the student court determined that Johnson was entitled to $500. A week later, Collins sent Johnson an e-mail asking for his cut. “I will pay you as soon as I get the money from SGA,” Johnson wrote in a reply.
A junior at the time, Johnson was campaigning to become the next president of the SGA. The elections were scheduled for April.
University records indicate that in mid-March, Johnson received the $500 that the court awarded her. But Collins didn’t collect his share. So, in April, he sued Johnson in small-claims court.
He also scrambled to file the paperwork to enter the SGA president’s race. Collins says he decided to run in large part because he didn’t trust Johnson.
Johnson won the election. She also beat Collins in small-claims court, presenting evidence that she had not received the $500. The evidence was a letter signed by Mel Tyler, vice chancellor for student affairs. Dated April 14, 2009, the letter stated that the student court’s ruling had been overturned “after further review of her responsibilities by the office of Student Affairs.” Jackson County Judge Gregory Gillis conducted a trial on April 17, 2009, and ruled for Johnson.
Collins, now a law student at UMKC, says the letter is a forgery. He obtained a copy of the university voucher initiating the $500 payment to Johnson. The voucher’s comment box cites her work as election director and the February 25 ruling by the student court.
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Collins appealed Gillis’ ruling, claiming that Johnson had committed perjury. But his request for a new trial was denied. The statute of limitations in small-claims cases is 14 days. “Unfortunately, by the time I discovered what she did and filed the appeal, it was past the deadline,” Collins says.
Johnson, meanwhile, finished her undergraduate career with a flourish. In April, the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs named Johnson a recipient of the Honor Award, a prize for graduating seniors “who excelled in academic achievement, involvement in university programs and service to the campus and surrounding community.”
Johnson graduated in the spring. But the forgery allegation persists as a point of campus intrigue.
The student-run University News printed a story last month outlining Collins’ complaint. Shannon Blood, a former SGA officer, told the paper that Johnson had confessed to faking the document she presented in small-claims court.
Klassie Alcine, who served as administrative vice president during Johnson’s tenure as president, tells me that Johnson complained to her that her stomach hurt as the small-claims court date approached.
Later, after Gillis’ decision, Alcine heard the rumor that a forged document had helped Johnson win the day. Alcine says she asked Johnson about the rumor and that Johnson confirmed it was true.
“She was laughing about it,” says Alcine, who graduated in May. “I didn’t think it was very funny.”
Asked to comment about the alleged forgery, university officials provided me with general information about student conduct and disciplinary procedures but nothing specific about Johnson.
In fact, the university will not even confirm that she graduated. A UMKC spokeswoman says Johnson has invoked her rights under the federal law that protects the privacy of student education records.
Alcine says students who are aware of the Johnson-Collins conflict are upset by the apparent lack of consequences. Alcine says if a “regular” student had forged a document, “I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t have graduated.”
Collins says: “To me, it just sends a signal that the administration is going to cover up for elite students, to avoid embarrassment.”
At the SGA’s November meeting, Sarah Walsh, a senator who represents the College of Arts & Sciences, submitted a resolution condemning Johnson’s alleged forgery and calling for the Office of Student Affairs to issue a stronger response.
Walsh’s resolution was tabled. Ashley Burress, the current student government president, presented an alternative that omitted Johnson’s name and made a generic commitment to ethical standards.
That resolution passed.
Alcine, for one, is baffled that Johnson went to the lengths she did to deprive a fellow student of the $100 to which he felt entitled. “I think she grew a really big ego and felt like she could do whatever she wanted to do.”
Sounds like a few politicians, no?
I left messages for Johnson, but she has yet to respond.
While we’re waiting, allow me to relate a personal experience.
Ten years ago, I attended graduate school at a state university in the Midwest. My gig as a teaching associate required that I spend time in the newsroom where undergrads put together the campus newspaper. Mostly, I helped write headlines and served as an anthropomorphic stress ball for the harried editors.
Proofing stories, I became familiar with the student government. So I recognized the recently elected president of the student body when he and I showed up for the same political science class. He introduced himself to me before taking his seat in the front row, center aisle.
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Student Body President seemed eager to please, as if he planned to make politics a career. One of his first acts as president was the creation of a public relations committee.
I left campus at the end of the term. Student Body President, meanwhile, began to make his mark on campus. Alas, his reign ended in scandal.
It came to light that he and other student- government elites had used a discretionary fund to pay for an evening at a popular downtown steakhouse. The protein, the champagne and the limousine cost $2,250.
The aforementioned campus newspaper learned of the dinner. So, of course, when the story broke, the student-government swells who had participated in l’affair sirloin tried to confiscate copies of the newspaper detailing their night of lavish spending.
Faced with a crisis, Student Body President first looked for cohorts whom he could feed to the mob. He claimed that his vice president and chief of staff had cut the checks to pay for the dinner without his knowledge. He said he was aware of a plot to steal the newspapers but did not approve of it or participate in it.
Baloney, said his partners in crime. A student involved in the incident told a university official that stealing the papers was actually Student Body President’s idea.
After conducting an investigation, the university stripped the president and seven others of their positions.
An individual who acts like such a shithead can go one of two ways: He can reassess his unblinking pursuit of power and adulation and hope to find a more authentic purpose, or he can stay in the game — managing congressional races, working as an aide at the statehouse — before opening up a lobbying shop.
My classmate, predictably, chose the latter.
Johnson, meanwhile, is said to be enrolled in law school at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.
According to a news release issued by the UMKC Office of Student Affairs this past spring, she aspires to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court.
