Virginia Tech student government marred by dysfunction and sexism, former members say

BLACKSBURG — Impeachment attempts against the president. Mass resignations. Scorched-earth campaign tactics. Claims of sexism and homophobia.

Welcome to student government at Virginia Tech.

The university’s Student Government Association, which represents more than 30,000 undergraduates, has become riven by discord, dysfunction and cronyism, according to interviews with eight current and former members. Students and alumni described a hostile environment in which political infighting, endemic absenteeism and rule-breaking defined the 2019-20 academic year more so than any significant policymaking.

“I don’t think it should be recognized as a legitimate student organization anymore,” said Jonathan Falls, a 20-year old junior from Mechanicsville who resigned as a legislative representative in April because it was “emotionally taxing.” Citing criteria that govern university chartered student organizations (UCSO) at Tech, Falls said SGA leaders have ignored the body’s constitution, failed at outreach to the student population and fallen short of achieving complex work. “They don’t meet the university’s definition of a UCSO,” he said.

Frustration spilled into public view in mid-August, when several former SGA members penned letters to the editor to The Roanoke Times. A month later, the university announced the Task Force on the Future of Student Governance, which in part aims to “increase participation and foster inclusion,” in student government.

Before taking their concerns public, some students had met with Frank Shushok, vice president for student affairs.

“When you hear students say that student governance at Virginia Tech is not working well, and you’re in my seat, and you know how important that is, to the future and progress of our institution, that’s worth paying a lot of attention to,” Shushok said in an interview Wednesday about why he had formed a task force. “So when I hear the students critique whether or not student government is representing the diverse voices of Virginia Tech, I think it’s very much a systems problem, an organizational problem, and that it’s a structural problem.”

‘If you’re not one of the boys’

Rebecca Trinh said she joined SGA because she was inspired by its work around disability compliance and around a bill allowing students to choose their pronouns in a university attendance portal.

“I thought we were headed toward a good direction, and I wanted to be part of the action,” said Trinh, a 22-year-old from Fairfax County who graduated in the spring.

But she quickly saw the organization consumed by infighting.

Controversy erupted over a so-called Easter Bill — which proposed the Monday after Easter be made a holiday — because of its disregard for non-Christian students. Rules that kicked out members after they missed more than two meetings led to massive turnover and a flurry of new appointments. At one point, Trinh recalled, the entire judiciary branch was vacant.

In the spring of 2019, members moved to impeach then-president Sam Felber because he had asked the marketing director to resign, according to Jackson Ribler, a junior who left SGA in the winter. In order for someone to be fired, members had to vote. But it turned out the body had never confirmed the marketing director in the first place, Ribler, 20, said. A committee found the president hadn’t done anything impeachable. (In a text message, Felber said he was hesitant to be interviewed. “Talking about my time in SGA brings up a lot of bad memories,” he wrote.)

It would not be the last time members would move to impeach an SGA president.

“I saw the downfall from the get-go, in some sense,” Trinh recalled.

In the fall of 2019, Adil Sageer became president of SGA. He was reelected last spring to serve through the end of this semester.

“In SGA we like to say people’s first meeting tends to be the most dramatic, and I was no exception to that,” said Natalie Koppier, a 22-year-old senior from Fairfax County. “Several people from the old administration came and spoke out against the president already on my very first meeting and throughout the semester.”

After Sageer became president, former SGA members say, the organization became less intentional about finding a diverse and qualified slate of members.

“It started with going to the first meeting and seeing all the people that were supposed to be confirmed were all male,” Trinh said. “I didn’t see a single female waiting to be confirmed.”

Trinh recalls she “used to live” in the SGA office. “Ever since my senior year started, I didn’t want to be in that office.”

“When you hear members of the exec team, of certain female members, say, ‘Oh, she’s kind of hot,’ or ‘Oh, she’s kind of a bitch,’ that’s not acceptable,” she said.

Several former members were upset with how leaders handled an advocacy trip to Washington, D.C., in which SGA members met with U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. No application was widely distributed, and the student attendees were all male members close to Sageer, they said.

“If you’re not ‘one of the boys,’ you’re a little bit limited,” Ribler said.

“There were a lot of female members and members of the LGBTQ-plus community who resigned, and one of the reasons that a lot of them cited was [that it was] a sexist organization and a homophobic organization,” Falls said. “Many of them had personal experiences ... that were pretty traumatic.”

In August 2019, Penny Nance, a conservative activist, denounced Tech’s freshman orientation as “leftist propaganda,” taking particular issue with people stating their gender pronouns. The adviser to SGA asked Ribler if the organization wanted to comment on Nance’s essay.

“I said we should absolutely respond to that transphobic letter,” Ribler said. The executive branch declined.

It later emerged that Sageer’s then-vice president (who currently sits on the future of student governance task force) had expressed agreement on Twitter with a video of right-wing pundit Ben Shapiro, in which Shapiro says he would pull a gun on Beto O’Rourke if the former Texas congressman tried to force his child to attend a school whose teachings included gay rights curricula.

Sageer declined an interview request and said in an email that he did not think discussion “about false claims” made against him last year would be productive.

“I have been honored to serve SGA in various capacities over the past three and a half years,” he said in an email Friday, noting he began on the equity and inclusion executive committee his freshman year. He credited SGA with bringing Sen. Tim Kaine to campus, selling T-shirts for sports seasons and engaging 10,000 undergraduate for input into Tech’s COVID-19 plans. “While leadership is challenging when people do not always agree, at the end of the day I am proud to be a Virginia Tech Hokie, and I look forward to living out Virginia Tech’s Ut Prosim tradition by making the world a better place,” he wrote.

Melanie Sherrill, a junior and current member of SGA’s legislative branch, said former members’ allegations were “bogus,” and that she has never experienced sexism while in student government.

“In general, as a woman, I’ve had a great experience in SGA,” she said. “I think a lot of it stems from being a part of different social circles, and with outcomes. I think the result of those letters came from undesired outcomes from elections and applying to student trips and things like that.”

Impeachment and campaigning

In February, Ribler showed up at an SGA meeting and called for Sageer to be impeached.

He alleged the president had failed in his constitutional duties to attend various university and Blacksburg Town Council meetings. Members voted 35-2 to form a committee to investigate the claims, SGA meeting minutes show.

“The president became aware that he was going to be impeached, so his roommate called for the impeachment committee to be formed,” said Koppier, who was involved with gathering evidence. “His roommate filled the committee with his friends and they decided not to impeach him despite the evidence.”

The committee determined the claims weren’t valid, by a vote of 6-4 in late February.

But the drama didn’t end there.

Manasha Bhetwal, an SGA member who had previous run-ins with Sageer, decided to run against his ticket. A third ticket also ran.

“It was just filled with forceful campaign tactics,” Bhetwal recalled.

SGA has a strict code dictating elections, with rules ranging from requiring campaign materials include the SGA logo to requiring candidates follow the student code of conduct. All three tickets faced charges.

One charge states Sageer took students’ phones and laptops hostage at the library until they voted for him online, according to the claims provided by Linsi Goodin, 21, who served as clerk of court. A claim filed by Sageer says Bhetwal impersonated him while acting “obnoxious” in an attempt to get people to vote against him.

“For some reason in the year 2019-2020, SGA judicial branch does not have a process to hear these violations, which is mind-boggling to me,” said Matthew Powell, who served as chief justice. Goodin said the judicial branch spent hours coming up with procedures on how to hear the claims.

Before the coronavirus pandemic shut down campus in mid-March, Sageer was reelected.

On April 16, three days after Sageer was inaugurated via Zoom, Powell and Goodin sent SGA members an email saying, “the process has now been finalized and we hope to hear all the claims in the following week.”

But a week later, they wrote, “It is with a heavy heart that I must announce the election claim hearings will not occur.”

“A lot of resignations occurred in judicial branch and then eventually ... we made the decision to basically not hear the claims for a number of reasons, and so a lot of people were very upset and understandably so,” Powell said. “It was one of judicial branch’s probably most important responsibilities and we failed to do it and I bear a large brunt of that responsibility.”

Future of student governance

Meredith Ashley, a current legislator in SGA, says issues with sexism and discord remain.

“I definitely think there’s a hostile environment in SGA,” Ashley said. “We’re definitely working on it, and I’ve definitely seen an improvement from last year, but by the same token our numbers from the representative body have decreased by 50% or more, just because of the number of people who have gotten sick of the organization and dropped it.”

SGA’s online roster shows 44 vacancies in the legislature out of 71 positions, and one person in the judiciary out of 12 positions. The roster includes names of some people who have since left, and SGA Secretary Reena Medavarapu said in an email Friday that the roster is being updated.

Shushok, the vice president for student affairs, said the task force on student governance will come up with specific proposals by the spring. Those recommendations will then wind their way through university bureaucracy with a goal of implementation next fall.

For former members, the task force is a necessary start. Many of them say change can only come from external pressure.

“All of these people are graduating in the spring, May 2021,” Goodin said of current SGA leaders. “I think all of the issues with the organization are going to continue, and that in a few years it’s very likely that more people who are going to get irritated with the system are going to write letters again.”

She added, “With the exception of a full overhaul of the organization, like starting from scratch, I don’t think that there’s anything else that can be done.”