At its Monday meeting, College Council (CC) discussed an emergency policy issued by Vice President of Student Organizations (VPSO) Fred Lee on April 19 that required all committee members and chairs to route all media inquiries through top USG officials and prohibited them from providing “substantive responses, documentation, or commentary” without prior authorization.
Lee rescinded the official order during the meeting, noting that it was never shared with committee members and chairs. Despite this, members were told they should still direct all media inquiries to the VPSO or other cabinet members.
The order was written after Maroon editors reached out to the chairs of several finance committees over the weekend to verify claims in an op-ed about USG’s funding and auditing procedures.
CC Chair Ben Fica said he received the order from Lee—who had shared it with Fica as a potential action—and shared it with CC, mistakenly thinking it was a directive that had already been issued.
USG President Elijah Jenkins said the policy would direct committee members and chairs not to share official documents or verify official procedures with the media, but that they would still be allowed to share their personal opinions about USG.
“I am okay with members talking about what they personally think is going well in a committee or what they think about their experience in USG,” Jenkins said. “I am merely asking that the actual verification of documents or official procedures … be directed through official channels.”
“I think objectively USG funding is convoluted. We all agree, that’s what basically every party [in the USG cabinet election] is running on, [and] that means a lot of this information can be taken out of context,” Class of 2028 Representative Grace Beatty—who is running for president in the ongoing USG elections—said. “As one of the people in particular who has been targeted not only on Sidechat but also by articles written out in the Maroon with false information regarding finance committees, I am hesitant to have my name put out there publicly again.”
The Maroon published an op-ed by Executive Vice President Alex Fuentes last week in which he criticized the platform of Beatty’s Premium Party slate of candidates running in the election. In a post on Instagram, Beatty disputed the article, alleging that some information it presented was incorrect. Fuentes has since apologized for the op-ed.
“I also have had discussions with other committee chairs [and] we all feel very uncomfortable about this,” Beatty said. “My number was discovered by the Maroon, and I was asked on multiple occasions on multiple different channels for different documents without my consent.”
Beatty has served as a Maroon reporter since 2024.
CC members also expressed concerns about the policy. “I think chairs and committee members should have the freedom to choose whether or not they want to respond themselves, provided they are not disclosing confidential information,” CC Vice Chair Kevin Guo said. Guo is running for president on the CORE Collective slate.
“I think that it is concerning as an organization that our committee chairs don’t want to talk to student media,” Class of 2029 Representative Gavin Wynn said. “This looks like a way to implement some institutional structure to [remove] responsibility from our committee chairs instead of having them being accountable. If that’s not the case, and it is the case that they aren’t qualified to speak because they won’t give accurate information, that’s another huge problem.”
CC also unanimously passed a motion to reappoint Lee to his position and discussed the election process for CC chair.
Only CC members elected for the 2026–27 academic year are eligible for the position of CC chair and must be approved by a two-thirds majority vote. The internal election will take place during eighth week.
College Council holds weekly public meetings in Stuart Hall 104 on Mondays at 7 p.m.
Editor’s note: CC representative Grace Beatty is a current staff member of the Maroon. She had no involvement in the reporting of this story.
