Written by Olivia Brandon & Emily Carmela Nelson
On Tuesday, March 24, Cade Syvock, who was formerly involved in ASBSU’s Government Relations committee, posted a carousel on Instagram containing screenshots alleging that Student Body President Isaac Celedon threatened his education and attempted to bribe him.
Syvock claimed on January 18 that Luca Collins, associate vice president of academic affairs for ASBSU, offered him the position of School of Public Service Senator. After accepting, Syvock said Celedon asked that his confirmation be pushed out to the following week, to which he agreed.
Over the next two weeks, Syvock said he sent 10+ messages to Celedon regarding his appointment after first attempting to contact Collins, and received no response. Shortly after, Gabby Wong was appointed to the position.
Syvock eventually approached Celedon in person at an ASBSU meeting, where he claims he expressed his disappointment in not being appointed to the position and the lack of communication involved.
“I feel like some of this has to be made public,” Syvock said in his recount of the conversation with Celedon. “You put [out] a statement on January 23 about open communication and transparency, and you failed to show that.” In this conversation, Syvock claimed Celedon’s response was, “‘If you even think about it, we will be having a meeting with your deans.’”
“Most people don’t have a meeting with deans to settle a friendly dispute,” he continued. “It came off like ‘your education will be impacted.’”
Syvock said the main criticism he is receiving on his social media post is that Celedon did not owe him a response. “That’s a really bad stance for student government,” he said.
The ASBSU constitution does not require student leaders to provide reasoning or communication to members who have not been officially appointed.
Syvock claimed he was offered a position in general assembly if he “kept quiet” about the situation.
“When I went to go interview for it, I said that I would be open to it. I would have been the on-campus employee assembly member, but I said that I would not drop this situation,” he said. “If I’m representing students, this is something that would be in their interest — and so they didn’t offer it to me. I would have taken it if it was offered to me, but it essentially was ‘keep quiet or you don’t get it.’”
When asked about the situation, Celedon said he felt badly about the miscommunication and said he wanted to find a way for Syvock to be involved. ASBSU Vice President Ethan Mariner then reached out to Syvock to interview for the assembly member position.
Celedon said he was not in attendance at the interview, but believes Mariner had concerns regarding Syvock’s previous negative feelings.
“Cade wasn’t given the [assembly] position because of concerns that he was just going to come in and come after me. If your notion is to come after people, guns blazing and not do work a legislator should be doing — is that going to be conducive to teamwork?” Celedon said.
Mariner confirmed Celedon’s account of the conversation.
“My full gathering of the reason why he wanted to be in the organization was to go after Isaac,” Mariner said. “My response to him was, ‘If you want to pursue disciplinary actions against Isaac, and based off of how you feel this situation went down, I’m not going to say you can’t. Go for it. But I’m not going to let you into our organization knowing you have ill will against our president.’ It just didn’t make sense. Pretty much the minute he started speaking [in] that manner, I ended the meeting and said, ‘Best of luck.’”
Although he noted it was speculation, Syvock said he believes Government Relations Officer Austin Rose, who he said came to his defense, was relieved of his duties due to speaking out about the situation.
The Arbiter reached out to Rose, who stated while he has not been removed from the position, Celedon has taken over his responsibilities as of March 25. Rose claimed when he asked Celedon why his duties were revoked, Celedon said, “Because I said so,” and “This decision is final.”
After being reached out to for comment, Celedon claimed the only responsibility Rose no longer has is acting as the point of contact for the America 250 event.
Although Celedon said he disputes Syvock’s claims and recount of events, he did note he was fully responsible for any unclear communication regarding the appointment.
“What we should be at fault for is the miscommunication,” Celedon said. “Yes, 100%, I will say, I’ll take responsibility solely, and I don’t put any blame on Luca [Collins]. He had just stepped in [to the role].”
In reference to the claim that Celedon threatened Syvock’s education, he claimed Syvock said he was going to speak to his dean, to which Celedon suggested the three of them sit down for a “mediated conversation.”
“That claim is a really big stretch of everything,” Celedon said. “But at the same time, do people honestly think that one student leader, [it] doesn’t matter the title, has the position or the power to utilize a dean to threaten someone’s education? One, that’s a huge lawsuit. Two, that’s not how things work here at this university.”
