March 29, 2011 - 8:08pm
CSJ rules in favor of Rackham Rep. Hamdan Yousuf
BY MICHELE NAROV
The Central Student Judiciary — the judicial body of the University’s student government — ruled in favor of Rackham Rep. Hamdan Yousuf on Thursday at his appeal.
At his appearance Thuresday night, Yousuf appealed a Dec. 3 ruling by the Michigan Student Assembly’s election board, which found him guilty of e-mail spamming his constituents during MSA’s winter elections. Yousuf was penalized with two election “demerits.”
On Dec. 1 2009, Yousuf sent a mass e-mail to the graduate school student list-serve asking for students’ votes in the upcoming election, prompting Law School student Matthew Talley to file a complaint citing Yousuf as breaching MSA’s campaign bylaws.
Yousuf — who was elected as a write-in candidate despite the ruling — said he sought the appeal in order to clear his public record and advocate a stand against what he viewed as an oppression of his freedom of speech. Talley was not present at the appeal.
The original ruling by the election board found Yousuf in violation of section V.G.4.m of the MSA Compiled Code that prohibits “irresponsible and inappropriate use of e-mail privileges.” No previous potential candidates have been prosecuted under V.G.4.m.
Section V.G.4.m mandates that “inappropriate and irresponsible” e-mail use includes “harvesting addresses from the University of Michigan online directory, running mass-mail programs, sending campaign e-mail to individuals that are not students, and sending campaign e-mail to groups or e-mail lists that the sender is not a member.”
Law student Thomas Seabaugh who was appointed to represent Yousuf at the appeal, argued that Yousuf’s e-mails were not irresponsible because he did not violate any of the exact provisions of the code.
Seabaugh added that sanctioning Yousuf as guilty as a result of his noninvasive e-mails was a restriction of his freedom of speech.
Rackham Rep. Michael Benson, who represented Talley and chairs MSA’s Rules and elections committee, argued that the magnitude of campaign e-mails Yousef sent to thousands, including individuals who were unable to vote in the election, classifies the action as “irresponsible.”
After open deliberations the CSJ ruled in favor of Yousuf, largely due to the vagueness of the language in the code and because some justices viewed the provision as a violation of freedom of speech.
Law student and CSJ justice John Ringwood said he was compelled to rule in favor of Yousuf because of Seabaugh’s argument that the framers of the MSA constitution specifically designed the bill of rights in a way that holds as a very important value.
“The code was so vague that it wasn’t acceptable when juxtaposed with the power and the grandeur of freedom of speech as it’s found in the constitution, which is very clear through the design of the document as well as the strong wording,” he said.
Chief justice and law student Michael Huston said he dissented from the majority because he believes the MSA constitution specifically gives the assembly the power to regulate elections.
Yousuf said he was pleased with the verdict, adding that it was “a powerful day for student rights.”
“This sets a powerful precedent that students have the same right to free speech on campus as they do in other forums,” he said.
Benson said despite the ruling, he still believes Yousuf still broke the rules.
“Hamdan clearly knew, based on the trial with the election board and based on what he said here that what he was doing was shady at best,” he said. “So he should have known not to do it.”
