A Dysfunctional Union Can’t Represent Students

The democratic decline of our fair institution

Like many of our beloved St Andrean institutions, the Union is a bit dysfunctional. The website is so outdated, half the pages bring up 404s. Election guidelines are as complicated to read as Finnegan’s Wake. The Union flirts with affiliating a Reform Society, whilst it alienates other (less racist) student groups. And the whole thing runs on a draft constitution that was actually vetoed by the student body two years ago, yet, for whatever reason, remains in force. For an organisation so important to student life, and rightfully committed to change, I hope that this year’s new Union officials make it their priority to fix the institutional sclerosis. 

Dysfunction is a product of apathy. Like Orbán’s Hungary, a kind of illiberalism has taken over and fossilised within the Union, a result of tired and complacent ways of solving problems. This apathy has taken many forms over the last few years. For one, it has led to slow updates on the Union’s online presence, including serious delays on uploads of the minutes to public meetings. Those of the Student’s Association meetings, for example, still haven’t been updated since February 2024. It also means that contradictions, incoherencies, and loopholes in Union guidelines have been left unresolved, with serious consequences. Due to ambiguities in the Union’s campaign rules, candidates, and Union officials regularly participated in cross-endorsements this election season without reprisal.

It doesn’t seem like this matters on the surface, but without the easy access of public materials and clear Union rulebooks, the democratic legitimacy of the Union as a whole is called into question. Above all, an organisation that claims to represent all students cannot be seen as a clique. Otherwise, its function as a mediator between students and administration is compromised, and students are left without a voice to protest ridiculous new business schools and crowded tutorials. 

Institutional apathy operates beyond rulebooks. It permeates the spirit of an organisation, reducing the scope of its operations and changing its self-conception. The French Revolution began with the Rights of Man; thanks to the apathy of moderate French, it ended with forty thousand severed heads. The Union’s role is to defend the interests of students, not interfere with them in the name of well-being. It seems as if the Union is more concerned with the letter of the law concerning student societies than its substance, more willing to ratify a Reform Society bid for affiliation because they have enough members (no matter how abhorrent their platform is) than investigate why so many politically benign societies are considering disaffiliation. 

It is all the more ironic then, that the foundational law of Union operations is a constitution (or “draft laws”) that the student body vetoed two years ago, yet remains in a state of permanent disrepair. These laws include sections that are incomplete or incoherent, with references to authorities (“appeal to XXX”) that have clearly been left undecided. Cases like these are more concerning when the President of Union Affairs and Board of Trustees make decisions “on any matters not specifically covered by this Code of Conduct.” That is to say, nearly everything in a constitution is without well-defined powers. 

The solution to Union dysfunction involves more than replacing the constitution or updating campaign laws (though these are certainly important). The problem at heart is rather one of commitment to promoting student interests. This means all student interests, not just those of Union officers, and certainly not those of a Board of Trustees, whose nominally public documents have been inaccessible for years. Democracy is hard-won. It requires commitment to the common good, anything short of which is ultimately corrosive. I hope that this year’s Union officials understand that their responsibilities, above all else, are to students at this university.

Illustration from Wikimedia Commons