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ISSUE NO.
‘On full display’ Jalen Smith will return for his sophomore year with Maryland men’s basketball, SPORTS, PG 10
28, OUR 109th
YEAR
‘X’
Monday, April 15, 2019
sga elections 2019
elections
YOU party violates election rules, stays in race
elections
presidential hopefuls Four parties will be on the ballot in this week’s student government elections By Diamondback Staff | @thedbk
The governance board reinstated them after they were disqualified T h e Un ive rs i ty of Maryland SGA’s elections commission found the YOU T icket in violation of multiple election rules and chose to disqualify the party — but the governance board overturned that decision and reinstated it, according to a report obtained by The Diamondback. Last week, the commission announced the Student Government Association’s elections would be pushed back five days to “allow for current standing appeals and complaints to be thoroughly and fairly processed,” without providing any further information about those complaints. After the elections commission found the YOU T icket had committed five infractions, it chose to disqualify the party. But the SGA’s governance board, which met Saturday at 7 p.m., deemed this “overly harsh” and said it would “do harm to the democratic system of the University of Maryland’s student body,” its report read. Nancy Jin, the head of the elections commission, declined to comment. “Nothing throughout this process was malicious intent or trying to put us at an advantage. They were honest mistakes,” Andrew String, YOU Ticket’s presidential candidate, told The Diamondback. “We wish we had better understanding of the rules from the elections commission.” The commission found the YOU Ticket responsible for five violations — campaigning and advertising in a dorm, employing unauthorized advertising in the
A royal performance
Tiborae dendaest aritate aut aes sitatus sundae UMD students embraced drag queens — and one nis qui corende. SPORTS, PG 12 drag king — at SEE’s annual drag shot, diversions, pg 9
Taylor Green accuses SGA of racism Unite UMD presidential candidate wrote she’d witnessed ‘patterns of racist’ behaviors
by
Leah Brennan @allhaeleah Senior staff writer
University of Maryland SGA presidential candidate Taylor Green alleged Thursday night that a pattern of racist and classist behavior prompted her February resignation from the body, just days before voting is scheduled to open Monday. “Every step I took within this organization was an attempt to begin dialogue around diversity issues as it related not only to SGA itself, but to the campus as a whole,” wrote Green, who is running on the Unite UMD ticket and the Student Government Association’s former Diversity and Inclusion Committee director. “Every step I made was undermined by [SGA president] Jonathan Allen and his executive board’s lack of understanding, empathy, and care for this work and for these students.” In the letter, tweeted from the Unite UMD account and posted on the party’s Instagram page on Thursday, Green said the SGA had ignored the input of students from marginalized groups when planning events and had not taken direct action to assist these students in the wake of a series of hate bias incidents on the university’s campus. “I continually felt the chill of an exclusive climate [in the SGA],” Green wrote. “I have witnessed patterns of racist, sexist, by
Arya Hodjat and Anastasia Marks @thedbk Staff writers
taylor green, unite umd
ireland lesley, empower maryland
gabby baniqued/the diamondback
barath srinivasan, chicken broth for your soul
gabby baniqued/the diamondback
andrew string, you ticket
joe ryan/the diamondback
photo courtesy of andrew string
Find out more about the candidates at ter.ps/sga2019
See you, p. 7
See green, p. 7
construction
Dorms, dining hall construction to begin in June Dining facilities and a new dorm will be built on the Varsity Practice Fields Construction for two Maria Trovato dorms and @mariatrov one dining Staff writer facility on the University of Maryland’s campus is scheduled to begin June 20, pending approval of building permits from the state. The dining facilities and one of the new dorms will be on the Varsity Practice Fields, and the other dorm will be between that field and La Plata Beach, said Department of Resident Life spokesperson Tracy Kiras. The dorms — which will be used as overflow spaces for students as other dorms are renovated — are expected to be ready by fall 2021, but could be by
delayed by weather or other conditions. First-year University Honors students will be housed in one of the new buildings, said Resident Life director Deborah Grandner. The construction is part of the university’s updated 15-year Strategic Housing Plan, an outline of how the school plans to modernize campus buildings first published in 2014. There will be 902 beds between the two dorms. The buildings will each have one multipurpose room, and there will be two study lounges and two general lounges on each floor, according to the department’s website. These are all features that students had said were “high-priority items,” said Kiras.
calendar 2 OPINION 4 FEATURES 5 city 6 diversions 8 SPORTS 12
“I think [these] will be very appealing to residents as we’re forming these interactive communities,” said Kiras. The Residence Hall Association has regularly given Resident Life feedback on the plan since 2014. It will continue to meet with the department to discuss things including what they would like to see in the lounges and the layout of the rooms, said RHA vice president Ben Reichard. The next meeting is scheduled for April 25. “The big-picture stuff they already have figured out, so if we give feedback, it’s mostly smallerdetail stuff,” said Reichard. “I think it’s great that we have the opportunity to give feedback like this.” The budget estimate allocated $101 million for the construction of the two dorms. “We’ve been saving in our savings
account for years,” said Residential Facilities director Andrea Crabb. “We’ve been planning to do this.” The new dining facility — which will replace the North Campus Dining Hall — is expected to have 1,055 seats, according to the webpage for the project. It will have a station for vegan food, comfort food, LatinAmerican food and Asian-style food, as well as a separate, allergen-free station, salad bar and bakery. The new facility will also have gender-neutral bathrooms, according to the webpage. “Our dining halls that we have currently are very, very old,” Dining Services director Bart Hipple said. “We have repaired them, we have remodeled them, we have dated them, we have retrofitted them, and they’re worn out.” The new dining hall was originally going to be built on Lot 1 — a plan
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that was scrapped due to the already limited parking on the campus. The renovation of Cole Field House freed up the Varsity Practice Fields for construction, Grandner said, by giving soccer players another place to practice. “Since we weren’t going to be able to build on Lot 1, we thought this would be a good site,” Grandner said. “[The dorms will be] close to the other buildings on the North Campus, it’s close to where the other honors buildings are.” As construction begins, Resident Life’s site will be used to alert students about noise disturbances and pedestrian walkway detours, Kiras said. “Our plan is to not be disruptive to students and try to keep it contained to the construction site as much as See construction, p. 7
The Diamondback is a publication of Maryland Media Inc.