SGO move may have violated student’s civil rights

By Monir Khilla and James Vesos—

After the postponement of Student Government Organization’s (SGO’s) April 3rd election, a student has signaled his intent to file a lawsuit against NJCU and SGO for throwing his name off the ballot.

James de los Santos, 22, Finance major, North Bergen, and Internal Affairs candidate, was disqualified after six hours of open voting because of an alleged unethical e-mail he had sent.

The email sent to the NJCU student body by de los Santos, said, “Bring your school ID to the Student Union Building to vote today!” Following this was a list of five candidates running on the same ticket. What was perceived as unethical and biased was the origin of the e-mail, “From: Student Government <njcusgo@ gmail.com.>”

If an e-mail is seen as an official SGO e-mail, it can be misleading – as if SGO itself is behind this e-mail. To de los Santos, the issue isn’t whether the e-mail was misleading, but the fact that they denied him due process by kicking him off the ballot for both the scheduled election and the rescheduled election.

De los Santos who has hired an attorney, told the Gothic Times that he intends to sue the university for throwing his name off the ballot, a violation of his civil rights.The university is defending its decision.

“This decision [to cancel elections] was made by myself, and Jennifer Pena, SGO’s Executive Vice President.   The decision was made because we felt that it would be unfair and inappropriate to allow the elections to take place after a biased email was sent out from an address that could be confused as SGO’s.”  said James Robilotta, SGO Advisor.

“Myself, Jennifer Pena, and Dean Hamlin were consulted on the matter.  Dean Hamlin was brought in because she is my supervisor and I wanted to inform her of this serious situation.”

“This is a perfect example of battle between ‘Intent vs. Perception’.  What he was intending to do – inform students to vote that day, and ideally vote for the members of the ticket that he was on; is now being hotly debated with how it was perceived by a large number of SGO students – an attempt to act under the guise of the NJCU Student Government Organization.” said Robilotta.

“The matter goes beyond what is written exactly in the bylaws (which can be interpreted in many ways both for and against his allegations) as it is an ethical issue,” said Robilotta.

Robilotta also made clear through an e-mail to NJCU students that, “NJCU’s SGO was not affiliated with that email account in any way, shape, or form.”

Mario M. Blanch, Esq., de los Santos’s lawyer said, “The email in no way was intended to deceive or confuse voters as to SGO’s endorsement of these particular individuals. It is clear that there is no confusion as this is a “gmail” account and all [SGO] emails are from individual accounts.”

SGO does not have an official e-mail. De los Santos also said he sent the e-mail because his name was mistakenly removed from the ballot during the first hour of elections.

Regarding de los Santos’s disqualification, he was excluded from the elections without a hearing.

“They violated my rights to due process and violated every right of NJCU students to an open and fair election,” said de los Santos.

Adam Goldstein, Attorney Advocate for the Student Press Law Center, a non-profit organization that offers legal counsel to college campuses on issues of free speech, agreed with de los Santos and said, “I think they most likely did [violate his rights]. It violated his due process rights. Whether they have rules on the ethics of the elections, that’s one question, whatever the rules are. If somebody broke them, there has to be some opportunity to offer a defense.”

Because the actions were taken by employees of NJCU, they are seen as acts done on behalf of the university. De los Santos was not given a proper due process.

“There was a state action here because the advisor and the Dean were involved. It doesn’t sound like they asked him anything,” said Goldstein.

“I feel that SGO made the most ethical decision in that moment to preserve its non-biased stance in the election,” said Robilotta.

Outlined by the Elections & Credentials Committee By-Laws (ECC), de los Santos is permitted to go through an appeals process pertaining to his disqualification.

“Mr. de los Santos was informed that it is well within his rights as a student of NJCU to appeal SGO’s decision.  If the decision is overturned at any level of the appeal process that SGO will definitely hold another election for the VP of Internal Affairs position with his name on the ballot.”

However, Goldstein said, “I’d expect they’d get an injunction from his lawyer. Dealing with the appeal after the election makes it impossible to give him the deal he wants. It’s like saying ‘We’ll discuss how much cake we’ll give you after we’re done with the cake.’”

De los Santos feels that he was unfairly targeted because there was an attempt to disqualify him before the election, as well as his name being absent from the ballot during the first hour of voting.

SGO had previously tried to disqualify de los Santos before the election.

“The history they have with this candidate, after trying to disqualify him and then leaving his name off the ballot, there should have been a more careful process in place to disqualify him,” said Goldstein.

“If it’s unethical to have misleading e-mails, isn’t it also unethical for SGO officers to act unilaterally? Don’t they also have to have a vote?” said Goldstein.

Goldstein thinks that despite the e-mail “being a mistake, it’s not as damaging as leaving [his name] off the ballot. There’s enough stuff fishy about the way it was done, it should have been done more carefully.”