Following the introduction of four amendments to the SGA's constitution on March 18, 2025, conflict broke out over their perceived unfairness. While some students have presented valid reasons for their stance, others took a sensationalist approach, calling for the downfall of the SGA and doling out highly personal and at times borderline bigoted attacks against its members. It is important to note that this comes off not as the revolutionary cry for democracy and accountability they think they are putting forth. Rather, it reads as one prolonged tantrum. Students at the forefront of this movement have made it evident that unless the SGA is spoon-feeding them information, they lack transparency, and unless they bend to their every personal whim, they are "oligarchal elites." If anything, this incident simply shows that for a School of Foreign Service, much of our student body knows very little about how representative democracies work, with their understanding of it boiling down to the notion that whatever they want should be given to them.
Even then, what this "want" is happens to be quite unclear. Amidst all the chaos and discourse, it becomes increasingly difficult to ascertain what exactly it is that these contrarians hope to accomplish. Try as much as you want to parse out what their goal is, and you will surely (after acquiring a wicked migraine) arrive at one very simple conclusion: they don't have one. In my most generous interpretation, I can only say that their goal is to create conflict and hostility across campus merely for the sake of doing so and nothing else, for many of their talking points do not appear grounded in reality. One student, for example, was particularly concerned about limiting the number of eligible presidential candidates for next year to 15 people, failing to mention that all presidential races in recent memory have been composed of three to four nominees.
Their lack of a coherent objective also becomes particularly evident when one notices these students' consistent moving of the goalpost so as to make it impossible for the SGA to meet their demands. They demand transparency from the organization. When shown evidence of sustained transparency from the SGA's end in the form of clear communication via email and across social media platforms, they resort to demanding engagement with the student body's opinions. When directed towards the copious opportunities the student government has provided to give students a platform to engage—Karak and Conversations, Town Halls, and other such events from which the students who are seemingly so passionate all of a sudden about having their voices heard were notably absent—they demand a dismantlement of the government as a whole. Another student even went so far as to invoke the constitution to demand the chief of staff be fired despite her fulfilling her constitutional duties.
So far, people have allowed these inconsistencies to slip under the radar as they get swept up in the excitement of "restoring democracy at GU-Q," which is at best an unfounded fantasy, seeing as democracy was never lacking at Georgetown, and at worst an ideal they could not even uphold internally. The students pushing for the recall of these constitutional amendments may parade under the guise of caring for democracy and democratic procedure but are entirely undemocratic in action.
One can look merely at how they conduct themselves in discussions about the amendments in question and observe the lack of democracy and decorum in how they yell at and insult their peers—with one member of our student body showing particular pride in his ingenuity and not-at-all-juvenile attitude for using the word "stupid" in his writing when referring to the SGA. However, for the sake of once again being generous, I can ignore all that. What I cannot ignore are sophomores trying to pressure and intimidate a freshman into signing the petition calling for a referendum. Telling her that as long as she does not sign the document, which she had already made clear does not align with her beliefs, she will never get voted in as class representative—a position she had aspirations to run for the following year. What I cannot ignore are the sudden calls from those at the forefront of this movement to recall the amendments without having a referendum at all based on 118 petition signatures at the time of this article being written—roughly a fourth of the student body, which will leave three-fourths of the student body undemocratically ignored. What I cannot ignore is the lack of concern with democratic procedure when it does not serve their interests, which, as mentioned previously, remain murky at best.
Therefore, the question posits itself: what is all of this really for? Perhaps they feel they are in too deep after their initial explosive reactions and do not see backing down now as a viable option anymore. Perhaps they have personal vendettas against members of the SGA and too much time on their hands. Or perhaps all this noise is part of an elaborate populist political campaign for prospective presidential candidates, as it did not escape my notice that many of the loudest voices in this discussion are perfectly eligible to run for president under this constitutional amendment. Only time—and the upcoming reveal of nominees for student body president—will tell.
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