Senators discuss committee updates during a weekly Senate meeting, Sept. 24. (Bri Nitsberg | Student Life)

Three members of WashU’s Student Union (SU) Senate resigned from their roles — two on Sept. 17 and one on Sept. 25. Multiple senators told Student Life that they are considering leaving or not running again due to an environment that is divisive and stressful. 

Senators who spoke with Student Life referenced a range of issues contributing to the negative culture, including experiences of intimidation and bullying, a lack of respect, and backlash from other senators. While some senators have chosen to leave their seats, others are seeking ways to improve the Senate environment.

Sophomore Mahid Abdulkarim and junior Sahil Soni both resigned at a Senate meeting on Sept. 17, a week after Senate passed a resolution — that was later vetoed — to drop student suspension cases, to disarm the WashU Police Department, and for Chancellor Andrew Martin to resign. Senior Lauren Fulghum resigned at the meeting the following week, on Sept. 25. 

Fulghum told Student Life that she resigned due to conflicting meeting schedules but will continue to be involved in Senate in an advisory role. 

While multiple senators talked about the resolution as part of Senate’s toxic culture, many also said that the negative environment had been growing for a while. 

Abdulkarim said that he wants to address a range of issues that affect students, but he feels unable to due to the polarizing environment of Senate following the events of Oct. 7. 

“I want to do other things that help students but it’s just not able to happen when we argue for hours about things like disarming WUPD,” Abdulkarim said. “[But] not in the sense that I don’t support Palestine in any way — I just signed up for this to make the student body better.”

Senior Hussein Amuri, SU president, said that he vetoed the resolution because he believed it was only passed as a result of a culture of “intimidation, bullying, and flat-out gaslighting.”

“Several senators who voted in favor came to me in private stating that voting in favor didn’t capture how they truly felt about the content of the resolution. In their words, they ‘felt pressured’ to vote yes,” Amuri said. “Such a culture, for me, goes against the very essence of what a representative student government is supposed to be.”

Sophomore senator Emaan Sayied said that Senate has been more involved in sensitive issues, including discussions about the Israel-Hamas war and police conduct on campus. Although she sees these issues as essential, she believes that senators have not always been respectful in their conversations. 

“I get told by older senators that it hasn’t always been like this,” Sayied said. “Looking back, I wish we did a better job of establishing a baseline of respect for everyone else in the room.” 

Abdulkarim voted in favor and Soni voted against the resolution, but both wished for an opportunity to table and amend it. However, they felt like they were unable to do so given how polarized the Senate had become in the last year.

“I went in there [and] realized that we’re not doing what we signed up for — debating and compromising,” Abdulkarim said. “Someone asked if we could table topics to talk more about them, and [a sponsoring senator] said that nothing would change even if they were tabled and discussed.” 

Abdulkarim mentioned a specific instance where a senator said that if other students had not studied Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS), they would never understand police discrimination. 

“As a Black student, I don’t feel like I need to study WGSS to understand racism, but it was like forcing my hand to vote in favor even though I clearly disagreed,” Abdulkarim said. 

Sophomore and senator Noura Habona also felt like her voice was not being heard as a Black Muslim. She said she felt uncomfortable to speak on sensitive issues, since she believed it would be twisted by members of the Senate into seeming like she wasn’t against police brutality or the violence in Gaza. 

“If a Black or Muslim senator is saying they don’t agree with clauses in your pro-Palestine resolution or that they don’t agree with disarming WUPD and want to table it to discuss it further, you should value and take their advice,” Habona said. “You can’t help a community that’s facing issues without hearing them out.”

Senator Mika Kipnis, a junior, said she felt judged and silenced because of her Jewish identity and stance on the Israel-Hamas war.

“They look at me and say she’s a stereotypical pro-Israeli, who doesn’t give a f*ck about Palestine,” Kipnis said. “If you would just talk to me for a second, you would see that my perspective on the situation is more nuanced and that regardless of my own opinion, I am here for the student body and believe that the arrested students should be able to come back.”

Kipnis said that she believes many recent SU resolutions are performative and are not written with the intention of passing changes for the students. 

“If [they] truly cared about bringing back the students and dropping suspensions, [the resolution sponsors] wouldn’t lump that in with clauses that call for the resignation of Chancellor Martin and disarming WUPD, which would make the entire resolution thrown out by administration,” Kipnis said.

Kipnis felt most excluded when a pro-Palestine letter was posted in May to the Senate Instagram, stating that it was signed by “a majority of senators.” However, she and the only other Jewish senator were among senators who were sent the letter for review 10 minutes before it was due, while many others were sent it much earlier that day.

“I just felt entirely silenced. It’s like [the resolution sponsors] put a pin on me as a Jewish senator and because of that my opinions aren’t valid,” Kipnis said. “I am not resigning and I will run again, because I refuse to be silenced.”

Senator Sonal Churiwal, a junior, said that the time the letter was published was unprecedented and that the Senate was operating without a speaker.

“Calls for an emergency session were shut down by admin [following protest arrests], so regular decision-making processes were unavailable,” Churiwal said.

Senator and junior Natalia León Díaz, who co-sponsored the resolution from Sept. 10, believes that some senators have been unjustly singled out.

“Before presentation to the Senate floor, no concerns were raised by senators in my committee,” León Díaz said. “But [since the resolution], I have since taken the initiative to reach out to them privately, and we have developed a set of standards to implement moving forward … so that every voice is heard and accounted for.”

Sophomore Ian Gomez, a senator on the DEI committee, believes that Senate needs to become a more positive environment where dialogue and compromise can happen.

“There is a real threat that if we keep saying things that are just not going to get done, then the legitimacy of Senate is diminished,” Gomez said.

Both Gomez and Habona are considering not running for a Senate seat after their term ends. 

A senator who wished to remain anonymous for privacy reasons said that calling for Martin to resign just hours after he came to an SU joint session for a Q&A would burn a bridge with administrators.  

“We could have asked about dining issues, affirmative action, or even mental health issues, but now we can’t,” he said. “It feels like all I’ve gotten from Senate is embarrassment, stress, and worry. I’ve gotten nothing out of it and have done nothing with it.”

Junior Ella Scott, who serves as speaker of Senate, said that she’s aware of the divisiveness of Senate culture but has made steps to address it, including trainings that focus on interfaith dialogue and include conversations about privilege and power. 

“I want to make it explicitly clear that I will not tolerate ‘aggression’ towards other senators in discussion, harassment during voting, or judgment when operating in committee,” Scott wrote in an email. 

SU advisor and Associate Director for Student Involvement Sarah Edmondson declined to comment. All members of Senate were contacted by Student Life for comment. 

Senator and senior Braeden Rose said that he believes senators often forget that they might not reflect the viewpoints of the average student. 

“I think students [should] pay more attention and ask, ‘Is this who we want representing us to administration?’” Rose said. “And if the answer is no, then maybe they should consider running.” 

Sayied said she walked away from the discussion on the resolution about student suspensions and disarming WUPD on the verge of tears and considered resigning because of the stress.

“[The resignations] make me so sad. I feel like we really failed, because that just shouldn’t be happening, and it’s not acceptable, and I feel really horrible about that. I really hope that [after this], people will be more chill, just a little bit more understanding and more empathetic.”

Editor’s note: This article was updated on September 27 to better reflect Lauren Fulghum’s involvement with SU.