On Thursday night, the USG Senate overwhelmingly approved a resolution to request that Stony Brook President Samuel Stanley issue a public, written apology regarding his illegal closure of Stony Brook Southampton.
Three USG senators discussed hand-delivering the resolution to President Stanley Friday afternoon, but decided arranging a meeting would be more effective. The three are now in the process of scheduling a meeting.
Stanley, who is already required to apologize Monday to six students who filed and won a lawsuit against him, “has apologized to the media but has yet to apologize to the Southampton students,” said Adam Meier, the sponsor of the legislation.
The resolution, which passed 14-1 with seven abstentions, was written after USG President Mark Maloof received complaints that former Southampton students who requested to attend Stanley’s apology on Monday were being denied access by the university. Eventually, the meeting was opened by invite to current sustainability studies students.
While only the six students named directly in the lawsuit will be invited to the apology, members of the student group SAVE Southampton believe they should be able to attend.
“I can see why President Stanley wouldn’t want all these Southampton students coming, a lot of whom are still emotionally charged,” said Meier. “But I think a written apology would serve that purpose.”
But Senator David Adams offered amendments to the resolution, saying he wanted to “give it more teeth.”
Senator Frank Fanizza, who cast the only vote of dissent, thought confronting the university’s president wasn’t the USG’s responsibility. “I’m uncomfortable passing a resolution requesting an apology of someone who is way above us,” he said before the Senate.
But, ultimately, it was Senator Adams’s amendments and arguments that won out, with one exception. Adams had wanted to include Stony Brook Council Chair Kevin Law in the resolution, but Meier and other senators rejected the idea.
“Because of the sensitivity of this subject I didn’t think this was the appropriate venue for teeth to be added,” said Meier.
But Meier acknowledged that his stance was also a practical one. “The possibility of this resolution being acted upon by President Stanley was a factor in the ‘dullness of the bite,’” he said.
The university and President Stanley have thus far declined to comment, but if and when they reply, we will include their response in an update to this story.
Correction: The three Senators never actually went to Stanley’s office on Friday afternoon. They decided against doing so and sent an e-mail hoping to schedule a meeting.
Trevor Christian
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just to clarify: the president is not required to apologize to only the 6 student plaintiffs. He is required to apologize to those 6 and OTHER STUDENTS who were affected by the illegal closure of the Southampton campus. At the least, that would be every student who was enrolled at Southampton as of April 2010 when the closure was announced. He sought to minimize the apology by barring all of them & only allowing the 6 plaintiffs to attend his closed-door meeting. That is in violation of the agreement & is unacceptable. After much pressure, he is “allowing” only the current sustainability students to attend but every Southampton student deserves that apology & all should be in the room to hear it.
Thank you USG!!!!
This is not just for the displaced students, it is also for your rights and to enforce the transparency of the Stony Brook Administration. They need to be held accountable for their actions and they cannot ignore policies and procedures and break the law.
This was at the expense of a lot of students, their parents and the NYS taxpayers.
Respect is earned,not given because of your rank or authority!