Former Student Government Association President Leela de Paula ’23 announced her resignation from the organization, in an email to the student body on March 27. She served in SGA for two years, starting in Fall 2021 as a senator and the chair of the Advocacy and Equity Committee, which she founded that year. In her resignation email, she cited issues with racial equity and a lack of support for students of color as her reasons for resigning.
“SGA represents the belief that students should have a say in the way our college is and will be,” she wrote in an email. “However, there is a lot more to do when it comes to the culture, inclusivity, and self-awareness of this organization.”
De Paula’s resignation slots into the larger debate about racial equity at Smith. Many students have grown frustrated with the college’s treatment of race on campus, especially in regards to the proposed required course on race. Smith’s most recent proposal takes a three-pronged approach: the annual Smith Reads book will focus on race, departments will determine how to integrate racial education into specific majors and Race and Antiracism will become the eighth Latin Honors requirement. The latter is in lieu of a previously proposed required course on race that many students had called for– another symptom of the larger problem that de Paula cited in her resignation letter.
“I am also deeply disappointed in our administration in their hesitance to take bolder action,” she said in her email. “Their false promises of a required course on race, their lack of support for both student workers and staff, and inadequate addressing of a rising number of racial bias incidents on campus have shown me that for real change to happen at this institution, it has to been in concert with a wider movement that is beyond closed-door meetings.”
De Paula joined SGA because she wanted to “bring into the space a sense of urgency and severity where it was clearly lacking” in regards to challenges faced by students of color on campus — challenges that she said in an interview “were barely addressed, let alone brought into discussion.”
“SGA’s white elitism is so structurally permanent that no matter one’s intention, it is the culture of SGA that issues pertaining to marginalized communities have not and will never be prioritized,” she said in her email. De Paula felt this exclusion is inherent in SGA’s organization. She also noted feeling unsupported by other students in SGA and Smith administration.
“Unfortunately, I never felt like SGA supported my visions of equity – every step of the way, I had to fight through loosely-veiled ignorance, a lack of collaboration, and a passivity that did intense harm to all goals,” she said in an interview. “None of my Cabinet members sought to understand my visions and goals for the organization – the ones that I was elected to achieve.”
SGA is not unaware of these problems and the SGA Cabinet both recognized and shared de Paula’s concerns. “We would like to highlight the importance of Leela’s statement describing the predominantly-white nature of Student Government at Smith, and that our organization often has higher barriers-to-entry for low-income students because the work we do requires a significant amount of unpaid labor,” SGA Secretary Amelie Horn ’25 said for the Cabinet in a statement to the Sophian.
However, de Paula’s concerns about SGA’s handling of race are not unique or new. “I didn’t join SGA for fun,” said Sena Amuzu ’24, who served last year as the Sophomore Class President. “I genuinely saw it as a crucial avenue for institutional change that could possibly improve the rockiness of getting through Smith for BIPOC and low-income students.”
But, said Amuzu, SGA was not what she expected it to be. Like de Paula, she found it to be a challenging environment for BIPOC students like herself. Amuzu said that SGA demanded too much without understanding the specific circumstances faced by students of color. For example, she was a member of SGA while holding multiple jobs to support herself, but felt pushed to take on more than she could handle. This, she said, came from a general ignorance of what the college experience for a student of color or low income student looked like.
“It’s difficult explaining the culture of SGA to those who haven’t endured it firsthand, but it’s not an overtly, in-your-face problematic organization,” said Amuzu. “It’s a mixture of complacency, lack of agency, and overall ignorance and neglect of attempts for change.”
As a result of these experiences with SGA, Amuzu also stepped down. “I didn’t want to hold a title that wasn’t able to fulfill what I had promised,” she said. “It was embarrassing to be called the class president, listen to the grievances of students like me…, and do nothing due to an organization that prevented… any attempts for concrete, equitable change.”
Both de Paula and Amuzu criticized SGA’s relationship with administration, as well. According to de Paula, SGA “fear[s] being on the ‘wrong side’ of administration” more than it cares to take action on issues relating to marginalized communities, a sentiment echoed by Amuzu. Amuzu also felt as if there was a distance between SGA and administration that impeded efforts to create substantive change. She personally felt “more tolerated and managed” than supported by administration during her time as a part of SGA.
The Cabinet took a more positive view of their relationship with the college’s administration. “The SGA acknowledges and values our privilege to have a relationship with the administration, and understands the significance of using this privilege responsibly,” they said in their statement. “We advocate on behalf of the student body and work to share their concerns with the administration. Additionally, we work with collaborators from all areas of the college community to come up with solutions to address student issues.”
However, this relationship does not guarantee that their concerns will be heard by administration, or that any action will be taken at the institutional level. “We want to recognize that change takes time and, while our role is to advocate for student concerns, we are not the only voices contributing to high-level college decisions,” said the Cabinet in the same statement. The limitations on their actions that de Paula saw as “remain[ing] cowardly,” they see as the reality of being a student organization.
The Cabinet quietly refuted de Paula’s assertion that they did not support her goals and efforts toward racial equity. Their email to the student body, which came four days after de Paula’s, contained a list of complete and in-progress projects by the Cabinet, Senate, and various committees. These included the Student Power Coalition’s Jar Project and open forum on the required course on race, the Curriculum Committee’s presentation to the Committee on Academic Priorities on a potential Asian Studies major, and edits to the SGA Bylaws and Constitution by the First-Year Class Council to make both documents more representative of the student body.
SGA acknowledged in an interview that the poor representation of BIPOC students within the organization is “an institutionalized issue and SGA has been working on widespread reforms to make student government participation more representative and accessible for all students.”
These reforms include “fundamental changes to the constitution and bylaws which govern [SGA]”, such as “changing the name of the Student Power Coalition, increasing representation in Cabinet leadership, and restructuring the Committee on Elections and Committee on Appointments to ensure adequate resources are focused on new member recruitment and retention.”
However, de Paula argues that this comes as too little, too late. “I don’t have much faith in [SGA] changing,” she said in her interview. “If anything, I hope that a new kind of student organization that is focused on increasing student power begins on campus that answers to the needs of the students… We need student leaders who actually represent student views, all students. Particularly those who are never heard, and move in and through Smith as though they never were here.”
Amuzu was more hopeful about SGA’s future and offered some advice. “There needs to be an embrace of criticism with attempted action to improve,” she said. “Many members prefer to deflect matters pointing out what has been done, but if action is separate from current student grievances, how are we supposed to feel that something has been done?”
SGA appears to be taking this criticism to heart and attempting to address the root causes of problems pointed out by de Paula and Amuzu, though time will tell how effective their efforts are. “We hope that these changes help to build a foundation for continued reforms in pursuit of a more equitable and inclusive student government at Smith,” said the Cabinet. “With hard work, intentionality, and continued community dialogue, SGA is capable of becoming a more inclusive, representative, accessible, and accountable governing body.”
SGA will not be filling the position of President for the 2022-23 academic year; instead they will distribute the President’s responsibilities among the Vice President and other cabinet members for the rest of the term and will hold elections for a new president as scheduled.
4/26/23 Correction: One misquote corrected.
