It seems the November 2012 election wasn’t the only one to create unhappiness.

In the Cornell Insider, Aniket weighs in on the school’s recent student government elections, looks at a historic election to abolish the Assembly, and draws some conclusions for today’s campus.

If the recently concluded Student Assembly elections, marked by intrigue, libel and indecency, have made you skeptical of the worth of student politics, then you are not alone. These problems have a historical precedence at Cornell. And in the past, right-minded students on campus have been involved in several attempts to make the Student Assembly more responsive, efficient and representative of student interests.

In 1967, James Maher ’66 ran for the President of the Student Assembly on a popular platform to abolish the Student Government at Cornell. He described himself as a sensible abolitionist candidate and criticized the Student Government for squandering its funds without representing the students. Just like today, the membership of the Student Assembly was essentially seen as a resume booster and Maher blamed it for helping 4 students get into Law School each year. It even had a committee to discuss US foreign policy in Vietnam.

Aniket then reviews the content and direction of the student campaign.

But despite his strong abolitionist platform, Maher lost the race to Birchall who was endorsed by the Cornell Union of Students (CUS).

…But Maher did not capitulate. He launched a campaign against Birchall again in 1968… The abolitionists won a majority in the Association. By one account, their number was 30. Birchall, who was now the head of a defunct Executive Board, sulked but could not do much besides casting aspersions on the abolitionist plan.

The abolitionists wanted to abolish their own positions in the CSA. But once elected, the CSA refused to abolish itself or hold a referendum on Student Government by an 18-10 vote. Instead, it elected two of its members to represent students on the Faculty Committee of Student Affairs (FCSA). But Maher still made a strong appeal to the CSA to dissolve itself as soon as possible as most students were disillusioned with its proceedings and their participation was dwindling. Some other abolitionists pledged to vote again on dissolution and the CSA was duly abolished after two months of its commencement.

Continued student apathy and poor turnouts prompted the FCSA to reexamine “the entire role of students in the decision-making process at Cornell”. Some of this restructuring is reflected in our current Student Assembly. James Maher, aged 59, passed away in a plane crash in Honduras in 2004. But his imaginative and provocative campaign to end the Student Government should remind us that permanence is the illusion of every elected body that fails to live up to its mandate and descends into low skullduggery. The Student Assembly is no exception to this rule.