My understanding is that Ms. Rafeedie has been telling people that my piece about her Administration was coordinated with Mr. Frankenstein to attack her. And, by extension, the entire controversy was probably manufactured by Student Action to make her look bad. Nope! Actually, one of the main reasons I was so interested in the story is that it appears no one in Student Action had any idea what was going on; it was entirely internal, as far as I could tell. I was the one to e-mail Mr. Frankenstein the Kipnis e-mail that started the whole controversy, in hopes that he had information one way or another. (He didn't.)

Where I'm at with the Kipnis accusations is this: I can't seem to prove any of them. I'll run down the list:

1. Declining Quality of casework. Very hard to prove no matter what. Some circumstantial evidence by disgruntled workers, but no one has come out to say they received horrible service from SAO. UNPROVEN.

2. Declining Quantity of casework. Marina's e-mail from December claiming plenty of casework is damning. Mr. Yang did implement a new tracking system this semester that Mr. Kipnis never had, with 11 new cases on it. PROBABLY NOT.

3. Declining Levels of Publicity. Hard to prove either way. I'm waiting to see the Operation STAR budget for this semester, which should prove it either way. Some evidence that there's been little tabling on Sproul. UNPROVEN.

4. Lack of Policy Work. The Police Review Board thing is the main one here. Salam did fire last year's workers, and contends that they were incompetent. I might have evidence against this, maybe not. UNPROVEN

5. Personal Absenteeism. Again, very hard to prove. President Gabriel has been in Denver, so haven't been able to talk to him. Lots of circumstantial evidence. UNPROVEN

6. Jewish students reluctant to seek help. I was never sure what Mr. Kipnis wanted Ms. Rafeedie to do about this one. PROBABLY NOT.

7. Low retention of Caseworkers. This is the most important accusation, by far, and the one that is closest to being proven. I've received numerous e-mails from current and former SAO members who truly hate Ms. Rafeedie and her administration. There's also lots of secondhand information that indicates many officeworkers just dislike her. In contrast, I've only received one letter of support. Mr. Yang claims 50% retention from last semester, but rosters from this year and last tends to argue against that.

However! It's not at all clear how much is due to A) normal attrition, B) disgust with the way the office is being run, and C) personal dislike of Ms. Rafeedie. Mr. Kipnis claims it's B. But a lot of the e-mails seem a lot more like 'personality conflicts' with C. Now, personality clashes leading to firings is a fairly serious charge. Doesn't exactly make Ms. Rafeedie look good, sort of thing. But an office can have these things and still be fairly effective! More to the point, a lot of people leaving due to B would be indirect proof that the rest of the charges had some basis in fact. C's are less important.

Don't read the above as necessarily that I've concluded that the charges against Salam are false. Not true! All the hearsay, all the secondhand evidence, points to something being wrong with the office. But there's not much evidence, and that's what I'll write on Thursday unless I find out otherwise.

Meanwhile, Ms. Rafeedie has written a letter in her own defense-- or rather, attacking Mr. Kipnis-- in the Daily Cal. It's pretty pissed, and attacks her former boss extensively, which is interesting, since as his Chief of Staff, she is somewhat culpable for all the decisions made in the office. If Mr. Kipnis's publicity, case tracking, and Students Rights handbooks were disasters, why didn't she do anything about it as Chief of Staff? Surely she was at least partly responsible?

Publicity under Kipnis' administration was in shambles. His Ice Cream for Students' Rights was an utter disaster of an event.

But regardless, there's only one claim that I'm pretty sure is not true.

I am extremely proud of the Student Advocate Office caseworkers this year. They have done a fabulous job representing and defending students. None of the caseworkers were fired, and those who left on their own free will did so because of the time commitment the office requires.

If she means 'this year' as Fall/Winter, that's probably true. But people were fired over the summer, which is usually considered part of a year.

UPDATE: Apparently they 'weren't rehired,' which is technically different from firing, but amounts to the same thing. Why quibble over the language? If they truly deserved to be let go, and they might've been, firing would be considered a good thing! Lord knows many other ASUC workers deserve a pink slip...Email This Post!