The Justice

Executive Senator Eric Alterman '09 (right) swears in new Vice President Adam Hughes '11 (left) last Sunday. Photo by David Sheppard-Brick/the Justice

Adam Hughes '11 defeated former Senator-at-Large Andrew Brooks '09 in the Student Union vice presidential election last Wednesday in an election marked by allegations of intimidation, controversial blogging between students and candidates on Innermost Parts, a Brandeis student blog, intense campaigning and technical difficulties with voting.

The election was called for after Immediate Past Student Union Vice President Michael Kerns '09 submitted his resignation at the beginning of the semester. He informed Union members that he was taking leave from the University for personal reasons. Kerns was elected last spring after running against current Justice of the Union Judiciary Jordan Rothman '09 and Brooks.

Brooks' and Hughes' campaigns traded arguments on the Web sites Facebook.com and Innermostparts.com. Kerns endorsed Hughes on Facebook and strongly criticized Brooks in a comment posted on Innermost Parts. Kerns wrote that "[Brooks'] ego is unjustifiably selfish and his judgment in interpersonal affairs is nauseatingly poor."

Calling Kerns' comments "very threatening" and "inappropriate," Brooks said that he had never "felt so vulnerable at this school in all my time here than I did after I read that comment." While he stressed that he does not favor censorship, he thought some kind of moderation of the blog's tone was necessary.

Hughes, a regular writer on the blog, said that rhetoric on the blog was a lot "messier" than he would have liked it to have been. Hughes tried to distance himself from some of the opinions expressed on Innermost Parts by saying that "a lot of the opinions" of his supporters "were their own opinions."

On the blog, Kerns and Senator for the Class of 2011 Alex Melman also alleged that Brooks and several other students had gone to a dorm in Massell Quad late on the night of the first election round to intimidate Carrie Mills '12 after she wrote a blog post critical of the Brooks campaign on Innermost Parts. She spoke out against a campaign e-mail sent out by Senator-at-Large Justin Sulsky '09 to first-year students in support of Brooks. Mills declined to comment in detail. "The student body has made their decision in regard to the vice presidential election, and I feel it speaks for itself," she said.

Continued...

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