In the weeks following the 2021 Carleton University Students’ Association elections, it may seem like normalcy has returned to campus. Gone are online campaigning and debating, but the sour memories of a shameful election process remain.
What transpired earlier this year was a debacle that was utterly contrary to mutual respect, which is integral for a healthy university community. This year’s CUSA elections deserve condemnation from members of Carleton—nothing less—if we hope for a more respectful campaign next year.
This year’s CUSA elections were a golden opportunity to increase student engagement with the move to online campaigning. Instead, some students took to social media to degrade candidates. While it was encouraging to see some civil debate during the campaign, there is no doubt that online vitriol created a largely toxic campaign environment.
This toxicity is no better exemplified than through the events of Jan. 30, when news broke that a candidate had posted on social media about having thoughts of self-harm after being cyberbullied as a result of the campaign.
While it is likely that it was only an individual or two behind this particular cyberbullying incident, we should not dismiss the shame this puts upon our school community. We are talking about how amateur student politics could have cost someone their life. The fact that the toxicity of this election was allowed to escalate to this point is pathetic.
Many CUSA hopefuls took this opportunity to imply a moral high ground by accusing other candidates of encouraging this toxicity. Although these candidates didn’t specify who their comments were aimed at, the fact they were directed at fellow candidates made them incredibly inaccurate.
The online hate that occurred during this year’s elections was encouraged by CUSA’s poor regulation and a collective lack of acknowledgement of it by the Carleton community, not by any individual candidate. Some candidates baselessly accusing one another of encouraging harassment was a significant low point, and was at the expense of mutual respect as members of the same community and candidates in the same election.
Furthermore, this year has made it seem as though campaigning is no longer an indicator of which candidates have the best policies or ideas, but which ones had the most pervasive online presence.
This was evident in the fact that the candidates that saw the most success in terms of votes also tended to have significant social media followings. It makes one wonder if votes were cast based on support for the candidates’ ideas, rather than whoever voters recognized from their Instagram feeds.
If CUSA elections are to be taken seriously, candidates must be encouraged to relate to students in a way that honours the inherent dignity of what a student association and the vital services it offers is meant to represent: students’ agency in making decisions that affect their community.
Treating this year’s elections like middle school politics not only created an environment for bullying, it also jeopardized our campus democracy. This year’s campaign magnified the general pessimism felt towards our student association, made especially clear in the significant controversy regarding a potential conflict of interest involving the chief electoral officer (CEO) Alexa Camick and Emily Buchkowsky, one of the candidates.
While there is currently no reason to believe the CEO did not do her job fairly, there was plenty of reason for CUSA to have anticipated the appearance of a conflict of interest when Camick was appointed. Failing to recognize this was a failure on CUSA’s part to acknowledge student concern surrounding their affairs and was nothing short of tone deaf.
It is more than clear that the process for picking the CUSA elections’ CEO needs to be reformed to ensure the elections administration cannot be perceived as partial in any way, if mutual respect between the CUSA administration and the student body is to exist at all.
Additionally, the decision to ban campaigning on Reddit was arguably a blatant attempt at suppressing student voices. The electoral board stated they wanted only to permit campaigning on social media platforms which promote “positive politics.”
However, all platforms are vulnerable to the consequences of cyberbullying, as was made clear through the harassment candidates experienced via Instagram. Whether they are ‘echo chambers’ does not matter.
Banning Reddit was nothing less than an act of disrespect towards candidates who were concerned their followings on other social media platforms were not large enough to give them a fair advantage in an online election. It also closed a prominent avenue that could have been used by opposing candidates to engage in respectful, civil debate.
I personally know many of the candidates who ran in this year’s elections, all of whom are people I am grateful to have in my life. This article is not meant to scold any particular person, because it is not about one person. This is a plea for students to respect one another as members of the same student body.
No one is entitled to hold office at CUSA, and only those who demonstrate respect for their opponents and student body should be able to do so. It is my ardent wish that a review be conducted on the failings of the 2021 CUSA elections to ensure respect remains a value that is integral to Carleton’s campus politics in the future.
Featured image from file.
