The students’ voices have been silenced when it comes to an issue that ASUW President Ben Wetzel deems “to not be feasible and/or appropriate.”
A petition, “Fire Hunter McFarland,” was introduced to WyoVocal early yesterday morning and was denied later that day.
The petition calls for Hunter McFarland’s dismissal and states, “Your Director of Diversity has proven herself to be an anti-free speech advocate, a [sic] individual willing to threaten the students her job is to serve, and a poor face for this university and the ASUW. Please remove her immediately.”
When the president denied the petition, it had already garnered 167 students’ signatures and four students providing comments as to their reasoning for their decision.
A platform for students to voice concerns about campus actions, WyoVocal’s Terms of Service state if an issue does not seem within the scope of the ASUW Student Government, it will be updated as being closed, an explanation will be provided and there will be an invitation for students to contact ASUW for further information.
Wetzel said in his response, “As a matter of personnel, this has been deemed to not be feasible and/or appropriate.”
“I think he did fulfill that requirement of an explanation,” Chris Ryan, a Juris Doctorate candidate and author of the petition, said.
Ryan previously served as the director of governmental relations and in other capacities with ASUW for four years.
The petition follows a protest that has been co-organized by McFarland, with speculation occurring whether organizing has taken place while she has been acting in her official capacity as the director of diversity.
“Hunter McFarland organized this protest, well she calls it a protest, from what I’ve seen on their event page, I’m concerned it’s going to turn into more of a riot and she originally did it acknowledging her role as the director of diversity,” Ryan said. “And, in that role, she is subverting an RSO’s event and I think it is inexcusable that ASUW paid executives, so she is being paid with student fee dollars, would go and try and deliberately sabotage the event of an RSO, which means she is deliberately sabotaging the event of student fee payers.”
McFarland was unavailable for comment, however, a member of the protest said he disagrees.
Austin Morgan, the media contact for the protest organizers and student at the university, said, “I don’t want to attach any role to her. I would say that it was Hunter’s idea, her and I think maybe a few others, that protesting would be worthwhile.”
There has been controversy over which capacity McFarland was acting in, whether it was her role as the director of diversity for ASUW or as the president of the debate team or as a student.
“So when Hunter says she speaks as a member of the debate club and as a student, then that’s what she speaks as,” Morgan said.
Following the denial of the petition, Ryan filed an ethics complaint against McFarland for her role in the protest and a judicial council interpretation of the section Wetzel cites with the infeasibility of this petition.
The judicial council interpretation is in an effort to understand this section of the WyoVocal Terms of Service.
“And my question to the judicial council is how is it not feasible for the administration to fire staff,” Ryan said. “Or, if that can be interpreted as personnel issues are not feasible.”
The reason Ryan took to WyoVocal was in an effort to improve transparency about the way in which ASUW dealt with McFarland “internally.”
“I think that the whole issue to date has been not very transparent and the reason I went about this on WyoVocal was for transparency,” Ryan said. “Now that I’m filing an ethics complaint, it’s basically sealed, so the student body will have no ability to follow this complaint as it proceeds.”
The petition was created with the purpose of removing McFarland from office, but Morgan said he disagrees with this action.
“Any attempt to remove Hunter from her position is an attempt to silence her and all those who would speak against the injustices faced by students, veterans, non-traditional students, Latinos, Black Americans, White Americans, poor Americans, LGBTQ. I don’t care. All over the spectrum,” Morgan said.
Morgan said he plans to take action if McFarland is fired.
“The second she’s fired, I’m going to challenge it,” Morgan said. “(Vice President of Student Affairs Sean) Blackburn has the ability to overrule all ASUW sanctions and Hunter has a right, as a citizen of this country and as a member of the UW community, to a fair trial.”
The ethics complaint and judicial council interpretation were filed the night of Wednesday, Nov. 8.
According to the Judicial Council Rules and Procedures, once the referral or complaint has been submitted the council has 10 academic days to schedule a hearing.
