FORT WORTH, Texas
Abilene Christian University’s Black student body president has been impeached six months after he reported finding a noose on his chair, although students and officials say that had no connection to his ousting.
The Students’ Association Congress voted 25-5-2 Wednesday night to impeach Daniel Paul Watkins, saying he had not fulfilled the 20 hours of required work per week as an executive officer, was frequently late to meetings and talked to a professor disrespectfully.
Watkins said he “made a pretty compelling case” that he should remain in office, then was asked to leave the meeting. He said he was not disrespectful to anyone and was late and had missed some student government work when he broke his leg last fall.
Then members voted after he was out of the room for two hours, although the university’s constitution says impeachment requires a three-fourths vote of the entire student government body and all 43 members were not there. Then the association’s vice president was named the new president.
“It feels like the rules were changed in the middle of the process, but I didn’t know what my recourse was,” Watkins, 20, a political science major from Fredericksburg, Va., told The Associated Press by telephone Thursday. “It feels like there’s a concerted effort to get me out of office for whatever reason.”
In an e-mail to faculty, Dr. Jean-Noel Thompson, the university’s vice president for student life and a co-adviser to the student government, said the impeachment process — a three-fourths vote of the members or those present — had been determined beforehand and adopted by the association’s cabinet, including Watkins. Thompson said the co-advisers met with the school’s attorneys to formulate the process because it was unclear in the bylaws.
