Inspire ticket recieves penalties for violating SG election code

BY CORBIN ROSS @CorbinRoss5

The Student Government judicial court handed down two penalties on Tuesday to the Inspire ticket for violating the election code by using people in their campaign video without itsconsent.

Six penalties disqualifies a campaign from the election.

The Inspire ticket, headed by political communications junior Byron Hansley and biological sciences junior Amber Salone, had taken video footage from LSU’s social media and used it in their campaign announcement video released on Feb. 5.

The Innovate ticket, headed by political science and screen arts junior Anna Cate Strong and political science junior Gigi Powers, argued this was in violation of a part of the SG election code that prohibits the use of a student or a student organization’s image or name without their consent.

“No candidate or authorized agent thereof may use the image or name of another student or student organization in any photo or video constituting campaign material without first obtaining the verbal or written consent of the student or student organization,” reads SG election code 810, section two, the basis of Innovate’s complaint.

SG campaigns are only allowed to campaign within a fiveday window, but they’re allowed to promote their campaigns on social media.

The court ruled the campaign video counted as campaign material but was allowed under the social media exceptions in the election code and was therefore subject to restrictions laid out for campaign material in the election code, including prohibitions on using images of people without their permission.

The hearing was presided over by two law students, chief judge Julien LeBlanc and judge Madison Latiolais, and econom -

TITLE IX, from page 3 requires public universities to share all power-based violence reports on their websites, typically listed as Chancellor’s data or complaint reports.

In their respective Chancellor’s reports from 2021 to 2022, ULM and Louisiana Tech each received four complaints about sexual harassment, stalking and non-consensual sexual contact. LSU received 182 complaints.

The bulk of LSU’s complaints were closed without any disciplinary action taken against the accused party, with 82% of them being closed for reasons such as “no response from complainant,” “complainant requested supportive measures only” and “complainant requested no further action.”

LSU’s Title IX coordinator Joshua Jones said LSU only refers to cases as open or closed, regardless of the investigation status.

“The reason we might close a case is maybe the student didn’t reach out to us, maybe the student did reach out to us and said, ‘You know what, I want you to know about what I experienced, but I don’t want you to do anything,’” Jones said. “Closed means either we didn’t

OUTAGES, from page 4

But they were dispelled concretely with an email from LSU Information Technology Services

PENALTIES, from page 3 ics junior judge Brookes Belanger.

The counselor for the Innovate ticket, political science junior Drew Prude, argued the video should be considered a form of campaign material that is subject to the section of the election code. Prude argued that campaign material isn’t subject to the social media exception for campaigning, and therefore 810 section 2 applied to it.

Prude said that even if the social media exception was to be applied, he didn’t think it affected their case, saying that 810 section 2 would still apply to the video promoting the Inspire tick- move forward in the case, or we did move forward in the case and the investigation and everything is complete.”

Jones said cases may take longer to close depending on whether the student requests for a formal investigation or an informal resolution, but LSU’s Title IX office strives to close cases within 60 to 90 days.

While 165 of LSU’s complaints are closed cases, most of ULM and Louisiana Tech’s cases share a different status: pending.

Only one report from either school during the 2021-22 academic year was listed as closed. It was a sexual harassment report to Louisiana Tech, which was closed within 10 days.

Louisiana Tech’s Title IX Coordinator Mortissa Harvey did not provide a comment due to “ongoing litigation.” The university is currently being sued for allegedly failing to take action against a serial sexual assaulter and violating Title IX.

“Early in my time at Tech,” said Louisiana Tech senior Lauren Shirley, “I heard about a situation regarding reports from multiple girls for the same male student, but when he was made aware that he would be expelled, he transferred schools

Tuesday afternoon.

“There is no evidence at this time to indicate this was a cybersecurity/ransomware incident,” a campus-wide email read. “This was et if it was considered campaign material.

“If you were to not allow this to apply, simply because it was not campaign material, really then when is 810-2 applicable?” Prude said. “Is it only during campaign season, during that five days those are the only days you’re not allowed to use anybody’s image?” beforehand.”

Prude argued the Inspire campaign committed nine violations throughout the video, eight for the students whose likeness was used and one for the baseball team as a whole. Biological and agricultural engineering senior Alex Basse, counselor for the Inspire ticket, argued the video should be considered campaigning, not campaign material.

Louisiana Tech was one of three Louisiana universities to allow Victor Silva to attend its university despite sexual misconduct reports. Silva was accused of assault by six different women from 2014 to 2020. He was never expelled or suspended from any of the universities he transferred to.

From 2014 to 2020, Tech only had a 0.2 expulsion or suspension rate. Shirley believes the university avoids punishing its students.

“They seem to give students a ‘warning’ after a report rather than moving forward with suspension or expulsion,” Shirley said. “When my friend filed a report against another student accusing him of sexual assault and stalking, it was immediately acted on – but when it came to further action, it fell short. The other student was talked to and he was told that if she came to Title IX office again regarding him, he would be expelled. Other than that, no safety measures were put in place.”

While Tech and LSU struggle with Title IX lawsuits and criticism from students, ULM students feel differently about their university.

“The school has tried to work an Internet connectivity issue.”

LSU students are “perfectly safe” to use myLSU, Moodle and other parts of the university network, the email said.

She argued that the video would fall under the campaigning exception for social media and 810 section 2 could not be applied to it since it only references campaign materials.

Basse argued that if their video was to be considered campaign material, meaning it would fall under 810 section 2, then the others’ campaign videos would also be considered campaign material and would violate the election code prohibition against distributing campaign materials outside of the campaign season .“If this social media is a campaign material and is campaigning, then every single one of us are disqualified, because we have all posted multiple times outside the campaign period,” with people to find the best option, whether that’s switching classes without an added fee or switching dorms,” said ULM alumna Madison Hernandez. “There is always room for improvement, but largely I think they do well.”

Hernandez said that ULM’s Title IX office had a quick response time during her attendance from 2018 to 2022, and the university provides classes with information on how and who to report sexual misconduct incidents to.

Meanwhile at LSU, students struggle to understand Title IX.

“I didn’t even know what Title IX was before coming to LSU,” Siharath said.

LSU’s Feminists In Action president Myrissa Eisworth said FIA works closely with the Title IX office to educate students and improve its services.

“They do a pretty good job of being self-aware about their shortcomings, and a major one we’ve discussed is just making the office more robust,” Eisworth said.

LSU’s Title IX office has expanded to 12 full time staff members, fostered a more active social media presence to spread awareness about its services and includes positions for stu-

Connection remained stable Tuesday, and the university said it has identified the problem and doesn’t expect further issues.

Southeastern isn’t as lucky. The

Basse said.

Basse argued that if the video is to be considered in violation of the code, it should be considered as one violation due to precedent in the Supreme Court case Wooden V. United States. In that case, where a sense of ambiguity surrounds the facts of a case, then the court should be more lenient to the defense. The court ultimately took this approach and considered it one violation.

Strong said she was happy to see the court provide more clarity for the upcoming campaign season.

“I’m just excited to see things defined more clearly in the code,” Strong said. “‘Cause it’s gonna matter a lot, especially the definitions of campaign versus dents to work as peer educators.

“The office is full of really good people who are actively trying to better themselves and the office. They want student input,” Eisworth said. “Title IX tries. LSU upper administration does not.”

In addition to partnering with student organizations, Jones said he regularly meets with other Southeastern Conference schools’ Title IX coordinators to discuss sexual violence issues and the Title IX staff holds tabling events and training programs to help prevent power-based violence.

“If folks have suggestions, we always want to hear it,” Jones said. “We want to be there for students when and where they need us.”

Despite the Title IX office’s attempts, LSU students like Siharath are still skeptical about the process.

“I would contact the police, I wouldn’t contact the university. That’s probably the last thing a victim needs, for someone to say ‘Okay, I’ll file that for you,’ only for nothing to happen,” Siharath said. “Some of them might’ve loved their university at some point, and then it’s just all tainted...that’s the last thing anyone would want.” university reported its outages to the Louisiana State Police, which is now conducting an investigation, according to a tweet from the university. campaign material later in the campaign season, so the fact that we can get those defined now is really nice.”

Hansley said their ticket respected the court’s decision on the case and would continue to push their campaign forward.

“We respect the court’s decision. It’s really not gonna stop anything. When me and Amber got into this, it was never to fight against another campaign; it’s to fight to make sure that the student body progresses and moves forward with a new vision and direction,” Hansley said. “So, at the end of the day, this does not stop anything at all. If anything, it fuels us to want to continue going and making a bigger impact on campus.”