Genaro Meza-Roa, Associated Students vice president for business and operations, is facing a potential recall vote over allegations about his conduct. Ella Banken// AS Review
By Soleil de Zwart
Today, the Associated Students Board of Directors will be voting on the potential recall of Genaro Meza-Roa, VP for business and operations. The AS Student Senate unanimously voted to recommend impeachment at their first meeting on, Monday, Jan. 14.
In an interview on Wednesday, Meza-Roa called the vote uninformed and said he believed the recommendation for impeachment was driven by a personal vendetta against him by several people within the AS, not out of professional concern.
“To see a unanimous decision from a senate is, for me, a cause of great suspicion,” Meza-Roa said.
He also responded to a number of concerns and accusations raised at the senate meeting. However, speaking in interviews on Thursday and Friday, three board members contested his explanations of events.
Conflict over pronoun usage
Meza-Roa and the board have been clashing since the beginning of fall quarter, when the board went on their retreat to Anacortes, Wash. At the retreat, the board had a lengthy discussion with Meza-Roa on pronoun usage.
In what he called a premeditated ambush, Meza-Roa said the other board members demanded that he make a habit of sharing his pronouns and asking others for their pronouns in meetings. He said they refused to let him leave before he accepted their terms, even if he was insincere.
While he said he has nothing against transgender people, the importance placed on pronouns is excessive and these requests were an infringement on his right to freedom of speech, Meza-Roa said.
Meza-Roa explained he has been in various group settings and “no one has differing pronouns of what you’d think they were.” He said he could tell which pronouns to use based on people’s appearance.
“If they’re male or female, you prescribe male or female pronouns,” he said.
Meza-Roa said he almost felt discriminated against because of his upbringing. Before coming to Western about a year ago, he had never experienced others expressing their pronouns alongside their names. This idea was out of this universe to him, he said.
This position puts him at odds with the rest of the board and AS policy. AS offices take necessary steps to create safe and inclusive spaces for students of all beliefs, background and identities, according to AS program standards.
Millka Solomon, AS president, said the importance of pronouns is not up for debate and is not a debate or controversial issue within the AS.
“Simply assuming someone’s gender can be very harmful and has proven to contribute to a variety of consequences, much of which can create lasting trauma,” Levi Eckman, VP for academic affairs, said.
Eckman said he hadn’t been aware Meza-Roa felt this way about the discussion during the retreat. There had been no conspiring against him.
“It’s so unfortunate to hear all of this now. I wish he had talked to me about this sooner versus having to wait until winter quarter,” Eckman said.
Eckman said he left the discussion to take a twenty minute break and emotional pause before continuing the conversation. And at no point did anyone refuse to let Meza-Roa leave.
Natasha Hessami, VP for governmental affairs, and Eckman both said that the board has freedom of speech, but that doesn’t mean that that freedom isn’t free of repercussions.
Anonymous report of seeking a no-contact order
At the senate meeting, Dayjha McMillan, Fairhaven senator, said they received an email from a student who said that they had sought a no-contact order concerning Meza-Roa.
The student said they had an unspecified disturbing encounter with Meza-Roa and Western deemed there to be insufficient evidence for a no-contact order. The student moved out of the state as a result, McMillan said.
Meza-Roa said he was unaware of any no-contact order being sought against him and described the incident as a falling out, while declining to comment further on the nature of the interaction. He said that people often described their interactions with him as uncomfortable because he is not afraid of confrontation.
Documents reviewed by the AS Review since this interview have shown that a student received a no-contact directive regarding Meza-Roa. Read the full details here.
Leaving board meeting and drinking wine
During the last board meeting of fall quarter, Hessami found Meza-Roa drinking wine at a College of Science and Engineering party in a neighboring room while on his way back from the bathroom. While he said he probably shouldn’t have done it, Meza-Roa said he had no regrets and was about to leave when Hessami arrived.
Meza-Roa said it doesn’t happened a lot, but drinking alcohol while on the job is common among the board.
When the board has been invited to university events or holiday parties since they are all over 21 they have indulged in the provided alcohol, Hessami and Eckman said. However, they are guests at these events and therefore aren’t working and aren’t being paid to be there.
“[Meza-Roa] was being paid to be at the Board of Directors meeting and was, instead, down the hall, drinking. This does not only reflect poorly on him, but also reflects poorly on the entirety of the Associated Students,” Eckman said.
Missing office hours
In the AS Student Senate meeting this past Monday, Jan. 14, board members present said Meza-Roa had been absent from posted office hours and regularly missing meetings.
Meza-Roa said all the board members have different office hours and it’s common for board members to miss office hours due to personal conflicts or committee meetings. He said during the beginning of fall quarter, he’d been unaware that he was required to have five office hours a week, and then corrected it.
Millka Solomon, AS president, is surprised when she sees Meza-Roa in the office, she said.
The requirement of five office hours per week is in the job description, Hessami and Solomon said.
Solomon also informed Meza-Roa of the requirement prior to the Oct. 5 board meeting, she said.
The board brought up Meza-Roa’s absences from office hours at the Nov. 9 board meeting, Hessami said.
This was the same meeting that brought up a proposal to implement a 10 percent pay reduction per office hour missed, according to the meeting minutes.
Not fulfilling job responsibilities
“From the very beginning of the school year, the board has systematically stripped my position of many of its responsibilities. They have removed me from several committees and taken me down in position from other committees,” Meza-Roa said.
This is partly because the position of VP for business and operations will no longer exist in the coming school year, due to the AS restructure, Meza-Roa said. He said he had showed up to all committee meetings he was required to.
Solomon responded that, from previous conversations, Meza-Roa showed he wasn’t capable of being inclusive to all students, so instead of being chair to these committees he was made vice chair or a voting member.
He also wasn’t present at summer, fall or winter training and wasn’t in contact with the board before the position began. Even with less responsibilities Meza-Roa hasn’t shown up to many of the meetings he was supposed to chair, Solomon said.
Improvement plan
One of the results from the Nov. 16 executive session, in which the board discussed complaints about Meza-Roa, was check-in meetings with Solomon.
Meza-Roa said Solomon was very pleased and proud of him when they met in December. Meza-Roa believed he was doing the basic requirements and meeting with the people he had to meet with, as well as checking in regularly with his adviser.
Solomon said she has yet to receive an evaluation or check-up on the things she asked him to be doing, which are primarily items pulled from his job description.
Solomon wanted to give him positive reinforcement to move in the right direction, but was not praising his performance, she said.
Not working with rest of board
“I have tried to connect with every single person on this board, they are the ones who do not want anything to do with me,” Meza-Roa said.
Meza-Roa brought back friendship bracelets from a trip over winter break and gave them to the board at the first board meeting of winter quarter, on Jan. 11, he said.
Eckman shares an office with Meza-Roa and disagrees with Meza-Roa’s statement.
“A bracelet is not enough to undo seven months of inadequate work, failure to perform job responsibilities, harmful rhetoric in the work atmosphere and drinking during a live board meeting, during an action item,” Eckman said.
Solomon echoed a similar sentiment.
Meza-Roa said he regularly reached out to the board members. Every day he went into the office, he approached them and said hello.
Eckman responded to this comment by saying it was insignificant and insincere. Eckman said Meza-Roa has greeted select members of the board when he was in the office.
Meza-Roa also didn’t participate in bonding activities with other board members during the Anacortes retreat, Solomon said.
Missing trainings
Meza-Roa said he wasn’t able to attend fall or winter staff training because of scheduling and financial constraints, due to higher flight prices for returning from his home in California. He also pointed out that a number of other board members had missed summer training.
Looking forward
If Meza-Roa is impeached, he plans to continue campaigning during the two to three week period before a scheduled recall vote by students. Through campaigning, Meza-Roa would spread the word of the discourse happening within the board and bring light to his view on the organization, he said.
“This whole issue is more than about just me, it’s about the direction in which this school and the student government will go in,” Meza-Roa said.
Updated 2/3/2019 to link to more details about the no-contact directive.
Whether Meza-Roa was incompetent and irresponsible is one issue, but if the following is true (taken from the article), then I firmly believe Meza-Roa is correct: This is his First Amendment right. Should he address people as they want to be addressed? Yes, because it is kind and respectful. But if the AS board thinks he can be compelled to identify himself by his gender pronouns, I think they can expect a lawsuit. How he identifies, or not, is none of anyone’s business.
“At the retreat, the board had a lengthy discussion with Meza-Roa on pronoun usage.
In what he called a premeditated ambush, Meza-Roa said the other board members demanded that he make a habit of sharing his pronouns and asking others for their pronouns in meetings. He said they refused to let him leave before he accepted their terms, even if he was insincere.
While he said he has nothing against transgender people, the importance placed on pronouns is excessive and these requests were an infringement on his right to freedom of speech, Meza-Roa said.
I agree that speech should not be compelled. The difficult part of this vote for me is knowing if the board is requesting impeachment because of the pronoun issue, or because Meza-Roe is actually incompetent.
After reading the article below, it is clear that the only allegation with valid grounds is when Meza-Roe was found drinking whine at a party. The allegation that Meza-Roe was “sexist” came because he voted against a woman to join an AS committee. Unless clear evidence is provided, it is not clear if Meza-Roe voted against Celia Major because she was a woman, or because of other reasons.
The allegation that Meza-Roe was insensitive to people with disabilities was because he used the word “retard” as verb describing a process becoming slower. This is still a common use for the word, and was completely appropriate in the context in which it was used.
I know where I will be putting my vote.
After reading the ASBOD Recall Statement, I see that the recall statement is focused on Meza-Roa’s inadequacy in his position. this is not what one would expect after reading “AS board member faces complaint about conduct”, and the inconsistency is troubling, but I am less against the impeachment than before.
The only troubling issue for me now is that earlier I made a snarky comment about the irony of an AS board that promotes diversity and representitiveness impeaching their only cis male. It seems to have disappeared.