Student Government Recap: Senate Shares Concerns About President

Students and the senate criticized Student Body President Brazil Brown’s (‘26) public social media presence in last week’s student government meeting. 

Brown’s public TikTok account was a main focus of the meeting due to a student’s anonymous email to senators detailing their concerns with her unprofessionalism. The student said the account, @urstudentbodypresident, reflected poorly on the school and student government. 

“I personally think President Brown should be extremely mindful of her content and actions. She is the head and represents the student body. She should be a role model but she failed to. As a senator, I am extremely upset with President Brown’s actions,” a senator who asked to remain anonymous said in a statement given after the meeting. 

In their statement, the senator also mentioned that the content Brown posted to the account contradicts the results of the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats analysis she conducted when she took her position.

During the meeting, Brown defended the account, explaining that her profile states, “This account is unaffiliated with the university I attend.” She said that she uses the account for personal purposes that are unrelated to her position in student government. She also claimed that her account did not contain any mentions of Drew or identifying information.

However, some videos that were deleted after the meeting explicitly mentioned that Brown is a Drew student and had comments mentioning the name of the school. Furthermore, the account featured multiple videos about racism and slavery in relation to Drew, as well as videos filmed in various recognizable locations, such as The Commons. 

In response to senators who mentioned these facts, Brown did not acknowledge that her earlier comment was untrue. Instead, she said, “This school has a race problem.” She went on to speak about how the purpose of the videos was to let people of color know that these issues exist at Drew and said, “By representing the student body, I’m representing the negative experience, too.”

Following this statement, Senator Kathleen Frazier (‘24) asked, “If you feel so negatively about the school, how can you represent [it]?” 

Other senators urged Brown to reach out to the school’s diversity, equity and inclusion office or President Hilary Link about her experiences with racism, rather than only posting on social media. In response, Brown explained that she did not believe Drew’s administration could fix this “political” issue.

In a TikTok video posted after the meeting, she made a statement regarding her comments on racism and disclosing her affiliation with the university on her account.

“I just wanted to apologize to any students who I may have offended by talking about my lived experience here,” Brown said, before explaining what she meant when she spoke about the history of slavery at Drew in previous videos. 

“When I said the presence of slaves on this campus, a lot of people read that as a negative thing. A lot of people view slavery as a negative thing. But slaves are not slaves to me, they’re my ancestors, they’re my family,” she said. 

In the video, Brown also said, “I am no longer going to mention my university in my TikTok in order to not spread any information about this university. I removed any content that said my university on my TikTok.”

As of now, a video featuring prominent features of campus and a four-minute video that shows Tolley-Brown circle in detail remain public. The first video includes pictures featuring the outdoor clock on the path, which clearly displays the university’s name, and the “Drew” and “Drew Launch” flags that line the path. In the second video, Brown mentions the C-Store and shows the Tolley-Brown circle, as well as all of the dorm buildings in the area. 

During the second video, Brown describes a party she can hear in McClintock, saying, “There seems to be a party happening in that building. Let me tell you, last year I went to those parties, it’s not a good place for people of color.” She then goes on to say that she will not mention the name of her university, out of respect, but she mentions that it is a liberal arts college. She also calls McClintock and Foster Halls by name before saying that she can smell alcohol in the air. 

Brown also did not delete videos that were filmed in recognizable locations, primarily The Commons and downtown Madison. Many of the videos currently on the account start with the phrase, “Welcome back to sitting down with President Brown.”

In her statement, Brown also said that she would describe herself as “chronically online” and said “the things that people [who] are chronically online do is way different than what people in the real world do…I forget real-world-people can see the internet and it’s not just existing on my phone, so I’m sorry about that.”

She finished her statement by saying that she views herself as a representation of “everything that’s right and everything that’s wrong in America.” 

Brown also said,“I want to use my voice for good, for bad, for good mostly, I was joking about the bad.”

She concluded her video by asking who contacted the senate about her TikTok account.

Budget

President Brown’s actions regarding changing a previously approved budget were also called into question during the meeting. 

In a statement, a senator said Brown’s actions are “extremely alarming” and that changing the budget without telling the senate cannot be swept under the rug. 

“The whole situation would also be more different if she overspent the money. Alongside that, if she broke the law this time, I do believe she would make a similar issue in the future. In my perspective, this is abusing power,” the senator said.

During the meeting, Brown proposed a resolution to allocate the $616 remaining from the digital marketing budget to the student government ad hoc fund. This request brought up questions, because all budgets put forth by the cabinet must be approved by the senate. 

Brown said that the changes to the budget were approved by the school’s Vice President for Enrollment Management & Campus Life Frank Merckx. However, Merckx said that it is up to the Attorney General to interpret the bylaws and clarify if Brown’s actions violated them. 

The senate voted unanimously to approve the resolution, with the amendment that half of the money be put in the Budget and Organization Board’s account.

Preparedness and organization

Students expressed concern that the cabinet and senate seemed unprepared for the meeting and were not fulfilling their constitutional responsibilities.

The senate discussed action items for nearly an hour, despite tabling a conversation about nine proposed amendments that were corrected by the senate during an executive session.

Former Vice President and President Pro Tempore Jocelyn Freeman (‘25) said that she was disappointed by how the meeting was conducted. She said that it was the duty of the senate to read resolutions and ask for clarification about the resolutions prior to the meeting.

In an anonymous statement, a senator said the previous cabinet would send the agenda to senators ahead of meetings “so everyone would be able to study the agenda and be prepared for the meeting. However, the new cabinet, on the other hand, will send out the agenda one hour before the meeting starts, which doesn’t allow us to have enough time to prepare and study for the meeting.” 

Frazier also brought up concerns with the cabinet during the meeting. She said the bylaws were not being upheld because the membership and contact information on the Path are not up to date. 

The bylaws state that it is the responsibility of the Chief Communications Officer to ensure that “a list of all members of Student Government with appropriate contact information” should “always be up to date on the Student Government Path Page.”

Members of the senate said that the cabinet should be given some leeway because they are a new cabinet and primarily underclassmen. 

Sierra Walker is a junior double-majoring in media and communications and marketing, and minoring in Spanish.

Featured image courtesy of Dee Cohen.