Letter to the Editor: Beyond the scarlet facade, what happens when elections become optics

Amjad Almuti
Wed, 11 Jun 2025 23:03:53 +0000
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The Amjad Almuti and Naba Jasim 2025 Campaign Team. Credit: Courtesy of Amjad Almuti.

Amjad Almuti is an incoming fourth-year in psychology and a USG presidential candidate.?

When Process Becomes Optics

This spring, Ohio State promised its 2025 Undergraduate Student Government election would showcase democracy in action. Instead, it exposed how quickly shared governance can crumble when administrators prioritize national optics over student self-determination.

As the Presidential Candidate for the Almuti-Jasim slate, my team and I led a slate of primarily minority senators where we campaigned as students first. We built cohesive policies, participated in debates and built the strongest campaign in recent USG history. On March 27, we were officially the presumptive winners of the election, with our main competition being disqualified for election bylaw violations. However, within days, victory curdled into a bureaucratic nightmare.

Our main opponent, Oliver Griffith, had already been found in violation of election rules after palm cards bearing his name appeared on car windshields, a textbook breach of posting policy. When the Judicial Panel levied a financial penalty large enough to trigger his automatic disqualification, Griffith reframed the verdict as an assault on his identity, insinuating that the only Jewish candidate had been singled out. He never proved discrimination or ill-intent, but he did not have to. The threat of bad headlines was sufficient to rattle an administration already under federal investigation by a trigger-happy government.

Administrative Overreach, Laid Bare

At 5:48 a.m. on April 4, Griffith delivered a letter to Senior Vice President for Student Life Dr. Melissa Shivers. By 9:30 a.m., Student Life ordered the student-run judiciary to “pause certification.”

That single email shredded the constitutional firewall that guarantees USG’s autonomy. Our governing documents grant the Judicial Panel sole jurisdiction over election disputes; they contain no pathway for administrative veto. Yet, on May 27 the university unilaterally erased every ballot and scheduled a repeat election this fall, because abiding by its own bylaws would have meant seating an executive team that did not fit the administration’s preferred optics.

The Hidden Price That We Paid

Throughout the campaign, our team endured levels of harassment no student should ever face. From being called racist slurs across campus to having threatening letters delivered to our off-campus homes. We were discredited and dismissed, attacked not for our policies, but for who we were.

Still, we stood tall. We didn’t weaponize our identities. We didn’t play with optics. We ran on a platform of facts, equity, and student-centered change. The decision to void the election, rendered not by any constitutional body, but by administrative fiat, proved that merit mattered less than perception. In doing so, the university punished not just us, but the volunteers on the Judicial Panel who upheld the rules as written.

Griffith has tarnished his own reputation, and with it, the integrity of the Undergraduate Student Government. Students across campus saw what happened: a supposedly independent student government reduced to a formality, overridden the moment it became inconvenient.

Choosing to Fight, Not Fold

We won under the rules in place. The university changed those rules retroactively, behind closed doors, and at the expense of students it claims to empower. This is not just about an election, it is about protecting the principle of student self-governance from becoming a mere talking point.?

Let’s be clear: the university has every right to refine its election processes, prospectively, transparently, and democratically. But it has no right to nullify an election after the fact simply because it fears potential controversy. Griffith’s campaign knew how to exploit institutional fear, armed with lawyers and insinuations tailor-made to pressure risk-averse administrators. And Student Life caved, not out of procedural fidelity, but self-preservation.

Where We Go From Here

We are proud of the movement this campaign ignited: students who refused to stay silent, organizers who worked tirelessly and peers who believed in a better, bolder USG. That spirit doesn’t disappear because administrators overstepped, it grows stronger in resistance. If shared governance is to mean anything, it must mean that students, not university officials, determine the outcomes of student elections.

Administrators redrew the boundaries of student power. History will remember who stood up and who stood by. In pursuing justice through our case, we stand not just for ourselves, but for every Buckeye who believes that student voices deserve to be heard, respected and honored.