As a Member of the Citizens’ Assembly, the HUA Must Fail

I joined the Citizens’ Assembly, a body of Harvard students tasked with writing a new constitution for Harvard College’s student government, because I want our elected officials to better represent us. Under the Harvard Undergraduate Association, the system proposed to replace the Undergraduate Council, student government at Harvard would be reduced in size to nine elected officers tasked with advocating directly to the administration, complemented by a number of volunteers under officer direction. However, problems inherent to the structure of the Citizens’ Assembly have created a situation where the changes proposed in the new HUA constitution only worsen many of the current problems with the UC.

Improving a deeply flawed student government is a noble goal. It is one that should be pursued at length, not over the course of 11 short meetings by a body whose diversity is questionable. With the pressure of an impending deadline amid the ongoing challenges of academic life, there was not enough time for members of the Citizens’ Assembly to adequately learn about different forms of government before finalizing a replacement constitution. During the brainstorming period, only three members of the Citizens’ Assembly attended a Zoom briefing that had been set up with experts in the field of governance, and when the Citizens’ Assembly decided upon the form of governance to proceed with, after seriously considering just two structures, only 19 out of the 30 original members were present and voted.

The problems with the HUA are not the fault of any members of the Citizens’ Assembly; rather, they are the fault of naivety with regards to how long the process of developing a new student government would realistically take.

As a result of these limitations in the brainstorming process, the HUA fails to resolve the main flaws of the current UC. While a recent professional investigation cleared the UC of financial mismanagement, which was previously one of the primary allegations of its incompetence, the main remaining problem with the UC — representative in-fighting and resulting ineffectiveness — is not properly addressed by the proposed HUA.

UC members in-fight because they disagree over policy for valid reasons; however, these disagreements often become the focus of attention rather than the problem that students are trying to solve. This can create a destructive cycle that leads some to walk away from the UC and others to wish to replace the whole system.

The HUA does not limit this in-fighting; instead, its structure actually promotes conflict through the creation of territoriality. The HUA has a system of seven elected officers — led by two co-presidents — split into seven teams, each tasked with a somewhat different mission. This means that issues which don’t fall neatly into these seven categories are less likely to receive targeted attention.

For example, because important missions like diversity, equity, and inclusion are present in all aspects of student life represented by the Finance, Social Life, Extracurricular, Academic, Residential Life, and Sports Teams, responsibility to deal with these initiatives will be ultimately split, even if the proposed constitution attempts to confine them all to the Well-being Officer. DEI issues are abundant on campus, and I can foresee valid and substantial disagreement about which team is supposed to deal with problems that arise, not to mention the conflicting opinions that each of the nine individual officers may have on solutions.

In a worst-case scenario, the HUA could advocate to the Harvard administration up to eight conflicting solutions to one inter-team problem. While there are band-aid solutions to these types of conflicts, such as requiring all officers to vote on each’s activities, doing so would simply turn the HUA into a nine-person UC. As each officer is tasked with working within their own territory, and has their own discretionary budget, the HUA is a situation primed for the wasting of student time and money.

Under the HUA, each team also consists of a number of volunteers who can contribute their thoughts in advocating to the administration. However, these volunteers do not save the HUA from the dangers of giving too much authority to a small group of individuals, as the new constitution does not establish a minimum number of volunteers that must be present before a team’s decision is made. Worse still, as the HUA’s main guideline on transparency is “some records,” officers could largely avoid accountability to the student body.

The issues facing Harvard College — such as DEI, Shopping Week, and campus dining — do not fit neatly into the boxes of the HUA teams. By proposing a system of government which divides itself among these categories and gives ultimate authority to only nine officers, the HUA is set up to produce conflict that would do nothing to serve the interests of students.

Legitimate disagreement over policy is a fact of our student body, so any system of government must manage this disagreement internally. A government which cannot act in unity does not foster consensus or create a positive image. The HUA does nothing to systematically solve the issues of ineffectiveness within the UC. Rather, the HUA would bare its disagreements publicly to the Harvard administration through multiple competing policy proposals, making the consequences much more damaging to the student body.

If the members of the HUA all worked together in unity, then it would be an effective organization to advocate on behalf of the students — but if this kind of ideal harmony were even attainable, the UC would also effectively advocate on behalf of the students. Knowing this reality, we cannot evaluate the HUA with rose-colored glasses. While the UC is itself flawed, our current form of student government is clearly the lesser poison.

Aldo M. Stefanoni ’25 lives in Thayer Hall.