Administrative mishandling of FAMU student elections was too obvious to ignore

Justin Bruno speaks as Victor Chrispin stands behind him and Elmira Mangum watches

Yesterday, FAMU Student Government Association (SGA) Vice-President Justin Bruno saw victory in his legal action against the university administration.

Leon County Circuit Judge John Cooper granted Bruno’s request for a temporary injunction to stop a full redo of the SGA presidential election in both Tallahassee and the law school campus in Orlando. Cooper agreed with Bruno that the new election should only take place in Orlando where voting-day problems were reported.

The judge rejected a “motion to dismiss” by the FAMU attorneys. He also disagreed with the FAMU legal team’s argument that the Tallahassee campus should be part of the election redo, too.

“I think the whole case focuses on what happened at the law school,” Cooper said in a quote published by the Tallahassee Democrat.

Bruno won the SGA presidential election last month. FAMU President Elmira Mangum supported a decision by the Student Supreme Court to order a redo of the entire election after the losing candidate, Victor Chrispin, submitted an appeal that claimed there were problems with the election process at the law school.

The injunction request by Bruno said it wasn’t necessary to include the Tallahassee campus in the new election because there weren’t any voting problems reported there and that it was unfair for the presidential contest to be singled out for the redo when other races took place at the same time.

“Everyone agrees the violations took place at the law school,” Bruno said in a press conference on Monday. “Why not consider the law school only (for a second vote).? Why is our campaign the only one being asked for re-election? Clearly, we are being singled out.”

Bruno told reporters that he thought Mangum was backing “a deliberate attempt to manipulate the outcome of this election” in order to make sure the next SGA president on the Board of Trustees will be her ally.

“If somebody gets elected that does not have a personal connection to her and will not act in her favor as an advocate for her best interest, then she might get removed,” he said.

The administrative mishandling of the FAMU student elections was obvious and the ruling by Cooper confirms it. This latest mess is another public embarrassment created by a university president who is more concerned about protecting her $425,000 per year paycheck than doing what’s right for the school.