HAMILTON-After an eight-hour marathon meeting Sunday night, McMaster’s Student Representative Assembly voted down a motion to reinstate Chris Jaic, the editor-in-chief of the Silhouette, McMaster’s student newspaper. Jaic was terminated without cause earlier this month by the student union’s board of directors.
SRA is an elected body of undergraduate students that sets policies and approves decisions of the McMaster Students’ Union. Jaic’s sacking raised questions about the process followed in firing him, and concerns about freedom of the press at McMaster University.
While backers of the sacking argued that the editor-in-chief position was subject to the disciplinary policies for full-time employees, opponents maintained that student union policies specific to the Silhouette should have applied. At Sunday’s SRA meeting, MSU speaker Catherine Brown gave a ruling on the matter.
“In cases where there is overlap, the policy that is more specific to the position should be followed,” Brown’s ruling read. “If operating policy 1/K [which pertains specifically to the Silhouette] was not followed in the dismissal of the Silhouette Executive Editor, then MSU did not follow policy.”
That policy states that “any paid staff member may be dismissed from employment with the Silhouette by a two-thirds majority vote of the Silhouette’s board of publications. This decision shall be subject to ratification by the MSU Executive Board.”
As reported in The Varsity earlier this month, Jaic was fired by MSU’s board of directors on Nov. 3. At the time, MSU general manager John McGowan said that the Silhouette board of publications is responsible for dealing with editorial issues, and that Jaic’s firing was “strictly a personnel issue.” He had refused to comment further.
At Sunday’s meeting, MSU president John Popham and vice president finance Drew Mitchell restated that position, arguing that any discussion of Jaic’s situation should take place in closed session, since they deal with employment issues. They received backing from executive board members Paul Jones, Kyle Park, and SRA house leader Andrea Dowell.
Four hours into the meeting, SRA went into closed session. When the MSU members were invited back in an hour later, two fresh motions were on the table. The first motion stated that MSU board of directors’ decision to terminate Jaic was in violation of MSU policy; the second stated that Jaic be reinstated as the Silhouette’s editor-in-chief, effective immediately.
Mitchell and Popham then challenged the MSU speaker’s ruling.
“We haven’t had an opportunity to challenge the chair’s ruling,” said Popham. “The democratic process has been taken away.”
Their challenge failed. SRA members then proposed an amendment to the first motion, stating that the board of directors had acted in MSU’s best interests. Both the motion to recognize the Speaker’s ruling that Jaic’s firing as a breach of policy and the “best interests” amendment eventually failed.
At 12:45 a.m., the meeting went into closed session again, to discuss the last remaining motion, Jaic’s reinstatement. During the next hour and a half, three SRA members left the meeting, while talks were underway.
The SRA meeting adjourned at 2:20 a.m. The motion to reinstate Jaic had failed.
The meeting had its share of lighter moments as well. A little after midnight, a McMaster security officer entered the council chambers.
“Excuse me, is there a Derek Collins here?” she said asking for the MSU’s legal counsel, who was observing the proceedings.
“Please call home,” the officer advised him.
One of the leading voices for Jaic’s reinstatement was Joey Coleman, a member of the Bylaws Committee and commentator on Canadian campus politics who has covered the situation extensively on his blog. Though Coleman is not a member of the SRA, on several occasions SRA members Andy Moonsammy and Jackson Wiegman ceded their speaking rights to him, allowing Coleman to throw barrages of questions challenging MSU’s board of directors.
After the meeting, Coleman vowed to look into calling a special general meeting of MSU, with the aim of pushing through radical changes to the student union’s constitution to allow students to elect the student union’s three vice presidents. Currently, only the MSU president is elected by the union’s members. Coleman also stated he would be supporting a petition to have president Popham removed from office.
“I’m done playing nice,” he thundered.
