In this post, I will be following up on my analysis of the controversy by talking about some of my motivation for writing it in the first place. I typically write about national issues or broader topics, rather than about my local community or personal life. In fact, the only time that I have ever previously written about Queens College was in my third post, called “Queens College Should Stop Promoting Vector Marketing.” My motive for writing that post was not necessarily because I believed that it would bring the policy change that I wanted, as no one activist can be solely responsible for policy change. Rather, it was more of a cautionary tale, warning anyone who happened to read it to avoid getting tangled up with Vector without knowing what they’re really getting into. Likewise, my previous post was crafted with the intention of raising awareness of the possible corruption in our elected student representatives. My wariness of the SFC/SSS was due to my experience of voting in the last two student elections.

Last year, I voted for the SFC Party straight-ticket (when you vote for the same party in every ballot position). I was convinced by the accomplishments that the Party had procured during their multi-year tenure. I must express gratitude to the Party for amenities that I use all the time, like the QPrint service, whereby every student is granted a free $10 print fund. Most notably, the SFC was responsible for creating the QC Shuttle Service. Paid for by a small tax added to every student’s tuition, the service employs a number of bus drivers to ferry students to and from two major Queens transit stations. It allows students from more distant reaches of NYC and Long Island, such as myself, to be able to attend our College.

I felt compelled to vote for them out of concern for the future of the service, as upon it’s initiation, not every student was happy about the extra $80 per year that we all pay to have access to the buses. Two students at the time were quoted in the NY Daily News with comments. One, a junior, said, “It’s a waste of my money. The student activity fee is high enough. This is ridiculous.” The other student, a senior, said “I think it’s really stupid. I’m never going to take that bus. People aren’t paying for me. Now I have to pay for other people? I think that’s b——-.”

A Queens College shuttle bus (photo taken by me).

People aren’t paying for you? Do you realize that you attend a public college in a public university system in a city with public roads and sidewalks, public transportation, and a public police force patrolling your neighborhood, a public fire department always on-call in a nation with a public military securing our defense? To me, it sounds incredibly selfish to complain about paying $80 a year to help out your peers, some of whom are paying way more on transportation than “$112 monthly.” There is certainly legitimate criticism to be aimed at the bus service, like this article in The Knight News about how the buses violate the Americans with Disabilities Act by not being handicap-accessible, despite still requiring disabled students to pay the tax. This reminds me how we must always remember that there are other people with problems more significant than just paying taxes.

The point is, I don’t want anyone to think that I am trying to demonize the SA or cover it unfairly. Just like with our national administration, I will call it out when it does things I don’t like and will defend it when it does things I agree with. I personally felt that the opposition party at the time was running against everything the SFC stood for, including the principle of shared wealth that the shuttle is funded by. Perhaps I had misjudged; maybe that by the time I had begun studying here, students had already accepted the shuttle bus as a necessary burden after a year of having it.

But all of that is in the past, before the present scandal. This year, I was no longer feeling so supportive of the SFC. I had become skeptical upon hearing about the unjustified stipends, before I had read The Knight News’ reporting on it. After reading the articles that I shared in my last post, I felt quite disillusioned. Before that, I had asked one of the Party members about the corruption.

During election week, partisans go around campus pressuring people to vote for their candidates on the spot. I asked one of them what the SSS Party’s stance on the allegations was. This person told me that they acknowledge the allegations and that since those being accused were graduating, the SFC was now rebranding itself as the SSS in an attempt to move past corruption, thus earning back the voters’ trust.

To me, this displays a great disparity in the Party’s narrative. I was able to accept the pollster’s claim, but once I saw the SA President’s article in The QC Times denying the allegations, I felt that I had to personally investigate the issue to get any worthwhile answers.

While I have learned a great deal, I have not been able to fully ascertain whether the President was lying. I have received some feedback about my use of the word “lying.” While I do feel that what he said in regards to the allegedly fabricated senate-meeting minutes was purposely untrue, the word is so powerful that it may have been a poor choice. Instead, I could have said that Japneet Singh is denying involvement because he either made a mistake or has something to hide. Likewise, in my final verdict, I said that either The Knight News or the President is lying. I just feel that there are too many disparities in both versions of events that I simply cannot accept both to be true. I now suppose that this does not necessarily involve lies, but rather could be a result of some serious misunderstandings. Regardless, I still agree with my statement about siding with The Knight News. In my opinion, they made a much more convincing argument than the President’s defense.

The time has come to conclude this project, as I now have no more relevant sources to analyze. Japneet Singh has not responded to my request for discussion; neither has Adam Rockman, the Vice-President of Student Affairs who oversees the SA. Ameila Inderjeit has spoken to me but is unable to be interviewed at the moment. And I have not yet received the documents that I formally requested in the Student Union. So, I will leave with one last thought on the election.

As I mentioned earlier, both parties do not abide by the sacred American practice of the secret ballot. This disregard for the voters is extremely unscrupulous and undemocratic. Especially in this very contentious election, is it really fair to go up to people haphazardly to have them vote out in the open? I don’t think that this practice makes for a well-informed electorate, considering how many students don’t have a chance to learn anything about either party before voting for whomever the partisan told you to vote for. The election’s winning party shouldn’t be the first to randomly walk up to 51% of the students as if they were conducting a research survey instead of determining who will be spending our money. Instead of complaining about a job-creating transportation service, we should be more concerned about who is representing us to the College Administration and even up in Albany when the SA goes to lobby for our well-being.

Whoever our next President and Administration will be, I want them to spend money responsibly, talk to their constituents and the press with transparency, and remember that ethics do not go out the window during election week. My articles might not make that happen by themselves, but they are certainly a good first step.