A document demanding for the immediate resignation of the University of Texas at Arlington Student Body President, Vice President, and the Chief of Staff
Forewarning: trigger warnings of this document commonly include racism. I apologize if I fail to clarify any warnings ahead of this.
This document is being updated as the situation develops. If you have more information regarding this please reach out to me through my Teams.
Timeline (TW: sexual harassment) 4
Identities of the individuals involved in the images 6
Racist George Floyd remarks (TW: racism) 7
General racist remarks (TW: racism) 11
Transphobic comments (TW: transphobia) 13
Imperialist remarks (TW: imperialism, possible racist intent) 16
Thomason Clayton 3/23 email (TW: racism, religion, imperialism) 17
Anonymous testimony from an Orientation Leader (TW: racism) 18
Meeting recording with John Hillas 19
Involvement and Engagement response 20
An Instagram page detailing the behavior of Thomason Clayton 22
Background and Demands
I am a student senator of the University of Texas at Arlington student government. I was brought aware of this situation only two days ago (3/22/2022) and I have been informed that this situation has been developing since the beginning of the executive leadership team’s term. Unlike my colleagues, I am not an individual who stands idly while the name of the University of Texas is tarnished by bigots. This is my home state’s educational institution and to see it in this state is sorrowful. Therefore, I created this document to disseminate this knowledge to the public student body of our university to allow them to take action on it.
This cannot be put under wraps anymore by the advising team of Student Governance; from how it seems, they are attempting to defend the university from bad press, as well as wait out the election season so that the current leadership can pass without scrutiny. Reasonable based on the Administration’s prior practices, but at this point, it has devolved into a disruptive process that is obstructing the line of impeachment and has now been exacerbated to a point where this can no longer be resolved internally within the executive branch, unfortunate as it may be.
This is a summative document of testimonies, both public and private, named and anonymous, that detail the issues behind the leadership team. To how deep the rabbit hole goes, I do not know: only that it has compromised the legislative process of this critical student organization. This document relays the following demands:
- The immediate resignation of Student Body President Caitlyn Burge
- The immediate resignation of Student Government Chief of Staff Alyssa Spencer
- The immediate resignation of Student Body Vice President Thomason Clayton
- An inquiry into the Turning Point USA Discord server, where the majority of the comments occurred, as to how it may have compromised the election code or may have generated additional violations to the sanctity of this organization
Timeline (TW: sexual harassment)
The following is my personal testimony of this situation.
On the date of 3/22/2022, I was contacted by an anonymous individual from the Executive Branch regarding an “issue” present in Student Government and that he wanted to meet with me. This turned out to be a meeting with both the unnamed individual and the Chief of Staff Alyssa Spencer, who inquired on my support to sign a form to forward the impeachment process of the Student Body Vice President Thomason Clayton. I won’t lie; I signed this form. I was misinformed, and while it may have appeared Thomason may have done some things worthy of impeachment and removal from Student Government, this appears to have been an attack in order to drag attention away from the offenses that the Student Body President and the Chief of Staff have been doing.
To elaborate, this form detailed multiple extraneous instances of unprofessional through “false allegations” of racism to the Student Body President and the Chief of Staff that the Vice President declared publicly. Such instances were similar to the Candidate Forum incident that is mentioned in next paragraph, and duplicates of incidents being reported to take place in the UT System Student Advisory Council, office meetings, and possibly other instances. Since I do not maintain video proof of these occurrences, the validity of these claims is questionable. However, the most resounding true claim to have been found out was the Vice President’s Title IX violation, of which he was banned from the EXCEL offices for having prior altercations with an unnamed student, ranging from cornering a female student in the EXCEL offices and verbally berating them.
For his Title IX violation and sexual harassment, we additionally demand Student Body Vice President Thomason Clayton should immediately resign.
On the date of 3/23/2022, the first Campus Elections Candidate Forum took place. The Vice President was inquired into his Title IX violation, to which he replied it was a developing situation (this is true, however, the Vice President is currently under reprimandation. A document detailing the Title IX violation from the Title IX office and a subsequent restraining order exists). Immediately following this, the Vice President declared the following statement: “The student body president is racist. I will be honest with you.” The Vice President also stated that he is aware an impeachment process against him is occurring. While video evidence of this exists, it is not in my possession. After this occurrence, I was informed in testimony by an unnamed member that the President and Chief of Staff went to the office and met with advisors, who recommended the retraction of the impeachment form.
Later tonight, the Vice President sent out a mass email to unclarified individuals (not everyone in Student Government): one of them was me. This document is a derivative of the proof he provided, and the email is present in this document. Long story short, everything he has been saying is true, as you will see yourself in this document. I immediately retracted my signature from his impeachment form following this and during my meeting to retract it I was not the only one who did so. I additionally contacted Mark Napieralski with the Progressive Student Union to inform him of this ongoing process within Student Government in order to get additional information and confirmation on some of the information given in the proofs.
On 3/24/2022, I was informed by office staff with SG that the President and Chief of Staff did not make a public appearance. Having retracted my signature, I was informed by another group that they are beginning the impeachment process of the President, the Vice President, and the Chief of Staff all simultaneously due to these allegations. I have signed these forms and do not intend to deviate. I am also calling on the Progressive Student Union and any other politically active students to take action and demand the resignations or at least inquiries into these problems. It does remain evident that this process is being stalled at best though, as mentioned above advisors are not recommending impeachment and are delaying the process. While there are also other functions that are preventing this investigation from moving forward, I have found it in my best interest to not include the names of the individuals involved until the validity can be ascertained.
At this time, there is an ongoing process to impeach the Student Body President, the Student Body Vice President, and the Chief of Staff.
Identities of the individuals involved in the images
Student Body President Caitlyn Burge | |
Student Government Chief of Staff Alyssa Spencer | |
Student Body Vice President Thomason Clayton |
Evidence
This document contains the following trigger warnings: racism, transphobia, homophobia, white supremacy, religion, imperialism
Please contact me if I fail to clarify anything through the Progressive Student Union Discord, including failures to include any trigger warnings.
Racist George Floyd remarks (TW: racism)
General racist remarks (TW: racism)
Transphobic comments (TW: transphobia)
Political bias
Imperialist remarks (TW: imperialism, possible racist intent)
Testimonies
Thomason Clayton 3/23 email (TW: racism, religion, imperialism)
Anonymous testimony from an Orientation Leader (TW: racism)
Meeting recording with John Hillas
Me and another unnamed individual with the Progressive Student Union met with John Hillas, advisor for Student Governance during the morning of 3/25/2022. The recording of our conversation is below. John refused to elaborate on any attempts to internally resolve the situation and did not give a straightforward response if I&E would at the very least inform the Leadership Team of these allegations and tell them to stop.
The meeting begins at 3:30: https://www.dropbox.com/s/vr6cu9rlzg8bpj2/Hillas%20Meeting.m4a?dl=0
Involvement and Engagement response
Later that day after the meeting, the following messages were released by I&E:
An Instagram page detailing the behavior of Thomason Clayton
https://www.instagram.com/p/Cbl2PWQlpk4/
Updates
Night of 3/27/2022
Arwa Jafferji, the Speaker of the Senate, has confirmed the impeachment process and will be proceeding with the impeachment of the Student Body President and Chief of Staff, hearings targeted for April 1st. It has been found that we as the impeaching senators do not have enough signatures to move forward with the impeachment of the Student Body Vice President, but we will keep pursuing this objective at this time. The announcement that the Speaker of the Senate sent out can be found below.
3/28/2022 and 3/29/2022
There were no legislative updates on 3/28/2022 besides the impeaching senators finishing the signing of Vice President Clayton’s impeachment document, which has now been publicized. NAACP, BSA, and PSU expressed their grievances in protest which 2 senators participated in, one of which was a Chair.
The 3/29/2022 Student Senate meeting took place and the Open Forum was filled with student representatives expressing their support for the demands; thank you. Additionally, impeachment proceeding rules were published and approved at the time of this General Body:
At the time of the vote I was not completely aware of the flaw in the phrase "All parties involved in the hearing including the Accused Officer, Impeachment Manager, and Presiding Officers shall have the right to bring an advisor of their choice or request the university to appoint an advisor to consult with on policy and procedure, but not to speak on their behalf,” which is shown at the bottom paragraph. This is a violation of Article II Section 2.8 of the student constitution, which declares that the Vice President of Student Affairs will be the sole advisor for Student Governance (which is John Hillas), this addendum allows for unspecified choosing of advisors who can influence the impeachment process by providing bias and partiality.
This is currently being disputed at this time by multiple senators.
3/31/2022
The impeachment hearings will take place in the Student Government Chambers.
This will likely be the end of the document as all information will be public after this. The impeachment articles can be found here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/d1mk8pg86zd5y0a/AACR_dfgspU67pJ_0IyNs5a9a?dl=0