Maroon

A photo of Cobb Hall.

Nevin Hall, the former vice president of student organizations (VPSO) and Elections & Rules Committee (E&R) chair for Undergraduate Student Government (USG) who was impeached last year, is running for a College Council (CC) seat this week despite current USG leaders’ determination that he is ineligible to hold office.

Hall is the only candidate on the ballot for elections to fill two Class of 2026 CC vacancies. One of the five representatives elected in the spring declined the position, while another, Ben Fica, assumed the position of College Council chair instead, according to E&R Chair Jay Love. Voting for these positions opened on Monday morning and will close on Friday at 4 p.m., alongside first-year CC representative elections.

Hall was accused in May of attempting to change USG bylaws to consolidate his own power, allowing personal biases to affect his decisions about RSO funding allocations, and planning to invalidate spring USG election results in response to his impending impeachment. He denied all the allegations, writing in a Maroon op-ed that his decisions, while sometimes unpopular, “were rooted in a sincere effort to strengthen an institution many saw as ineffective and to follow the rules in place.” College Council voted 13–0 to remove him and three other members of E&R.

The impeachment resolution, as archived on USG’s website, calls for Hall’s “impeach[ment] from any and all positions he holds or is scheduled to hold on the Undergraduate Student Government,” but does not explicitly bar him from future USG positions.

In an email Hall shared with the Maroon, Executive Vice President Alex Fuentes wrote that the impeachment does apply to future positions, making Hall ineligible to accept a CC seat, citing the minutes from the May 7 emergency meeting at which Hall was impeached.

According to the minutes, CC initially voted on and passed a motion to impeach Hall and the other E&R members from a list of specific USG positions. After the vote, the USG secretary asked whether the impeachment applied to other positions the E&R members might hold, prompting a brief discussion. Representative Kevin Guo, who sponsored the impeachment resolution, later “clarified” that the impeachment would apply to “all their current positions… and all future positions they may hold in Undergraduate Student Government.” No members objected to the clarification.

Fuentes told the Maroon in an interview that USG had mistakenly failed to update the official record to include the provision barring Hall from future offices afterward. “Everybody in College Council from last year agrees that that was the intention, and that was what was said,” he said. “But that was not necessarily notated.… We said these amendments were added and then never added them.”

He added that, because the minutes and other documents were approved last year, USG can no longer revise them.

Fica, who supported Hall’s impeachment last year as a CC representative, confirmed Fuentes’s account. “In the room, the members of the College Council believed that they were voting on impeaching Nevin from his current positions and any position in the future—not just positions that he was planning on holding, all positions,” he said. “That’s reflected in the minutes.”

Fica added that, if USG had implemented a proposed judicial council, Hall might be able to contest his disqualification, but Hall himself had blocked its creation last year. Hall disputed Fica’s account.

USG President Elijah Jenkins also told Hall in an email explaining why he was not included in a USG Instagram post featuring candidates in this week’s elections that “the [impeachment] resolution disqualifies you from assuming or being seated in any elected or appointed role within USG.”

In a follow-up email after speaking to the Maroon, Hall wrote that “the justification [for disqualification] seems to have been constructed after the fact,” noting that the minutes do not show a formal motion to amend the resolution.

He also argued that the entire impeachment process was rushed and that College Council was unprepared to deliberate on it. “It’s worth noting that even CC members at the time recognized the dysfunction and didn’t really understand what they were passing,” he wrote.

Fica said that CC could, by a two-thirds majority vote, reverse the provision barring Hall from future office to allow him to be seated.

Hall claimed that any motion to overturn his disqualification would “almost certainly” be blocked procedurally, writing that only seated members of CC could introduce such a motion and that considering one would require the chair to allocate it agenda time. “[F]rom experience, getting agenda time is quite difficult, as CC rarely wants to remain in session for longer than an hour per week,” he said. “Given that, it’s unclear how such a process could practically occur.”

Fica disputed the existence of any procedural hurdles. “There is no guideline in the Constitution or in the bylaws that says, ‘This specific person can bring in a resolution,’” he said. “Nevin is free to sponsor any resolution, and so long as he emails it to me, I can put that on the agenda.”

He added that if Hall sent him a resolution “a reasonable amount of time” before a CC meeting, he would make time for it on the agenda. “My job is to be as unbiased as possible,” he said. “I have zero personal qualms with Nevin. If he wants to run for College Council, and [if] he can convince nine members of College Council to undo his impeachment, then I will welcome him with open arms.”

Multiple CC members declined to comment on whether they supported seating Hall.

No USG bylaws or policies prevent Hall from running in the election regardless of his eligibility for office, according to Love. He added that E&R would report two versions of the results to College Council, one including votes for Hall and one excluding them, and leave it to CC to decide whether Hall is eligible.

“In the end, when it comes to the actual seating of College Council representatives, that’s not E&R’s purview,” he said.

Love added that Hall would “almost certainly” receive the most votes, since he is the only candidate on the ballot. If Hall cannot take office, the top two write-in candidates would win the seats.

Hall—who described himself as having done “more or less everything for student government”—served as acting VPSO and chaired E&R, the Program Coordinating Council, and the Committee on Academic Teams before he was impeached. He has also served on the University’s Library Student Advisory Council and the Independent Review Committee for the University of Chicago Police Department, which are groups separate from USG. He has never held an elected position.

He described a variety of reform efforts as priorities should he be seated, emphasizing an overhaul of how USG manages RSO funding.

“[USG needs] no-nonsense reforms that basically go, ‘The pot of money hasn’t grown. RSO needs appear to be growing. Let’s ensure that RSO needs are actually growing,’” Hall said.

He proposed more audits of RSOs to ensure they spend money as student government allocates it, reassessing which RSOs fall under the jurisdiction of separate committees with separate budgets, and clarifying USG’s funding guidelines, among other ideas.

He emphasized the importance of improving accountability in USG. “These are people with whom we trust over $2 million a year,” he said. “They represent us, and we should ask who we want representing us.”

Hall also called for the elected College Council to take on more responsibility. “It’s a little strange to me that, in the course of my impeachment, nobody asked the question, ‘Why can unelected administrators accrue so much [power]?’” he said. “We have a boatload of elected positions, many of which do substantively nothing, and I’d like to change that—more College Council involvement on every committee.”

Hall argued that disqualifying him from office after the election would be unfair. “Is it reasonable to exclude the guy who wrote the primer for how USG finance works and is the only person who has real experience in running elections, in running RSO finances, in dealing with University administration, particularly if the electorate picks him?” he asked. “I would say no—particularly because, assuming what’s alleged in the impeachment resolution is true, which it largely isn’t, I can’t do that again in College Council.”

College Council, USG’s legislative body, votes on proposals that originate in committees; approved proposals then return to committees to be implemented. CC members typically sit on committees.

Fuentes said it was not his responsibility to judge Hall’s eligibility. “I personally have no strong feelings towards Nevin at all,” he said. “I think he’s an incredibly talented budget person…. I don’t think I get to make the decision.”

Editor’s note, November 7, 9:59 p.m.: This article was updated to include a response from Hall about his role concerning the creation of a judicial council.