Student Government, much like the Federal Government, has its own version of the Supreme Court. However unlike the U.S. version, SG cannot find enough people who want to be justices.
While the U.S. Supreme Court has nine members, SG is supposed to have five. But since SG doesn’t pay its justices, there hasn’t been a full court in a year. Three months ago a chief justice was appointed and now all that is needed for a full court is for the Boca campus, the largest, to appoint a justice.
Heather Boyer, the senate speaker from the Jupiter campus, has harsh words for the Boca campus and its governor regarding the student court and the recent dismissals of two court cases by the chief justice.
She explained that this situation would never have come up in the first place if Diana DeJesus, the governor of the Boca campus, had appointed an associate justice.
“Why doesn’t Boca have an associate justice?” Boyer asks and adds, “It’s reprehensible,” that the governor hasn’t appointed one yet – especially since DeJesus has 17,000 students on her campus.
“The UWC should not be handling this anyway,” Boyer says.
DeJesus disagreed with Boyer’s assessment of the situation.
“Firstly I may have 17,000 students but that’s irregardless because the associate justice position is unpaid,” DeJesus says.
“To blame that on me is absurd,” DeJesus said, adding Boyer, “doesn’t understand the Boca campus.”
She said she’s not quite sure how the justices are appointed in Jupiter but in Boca DeJesus says they have to be sent to a conformational meeting, which is a sub-committee that overlooks the appointment and gives their recommendation to the senate.
However, she also admits she hasn’t sent anyone to the sub-committee for confirmation as of yet but blames that on the lack of applicants for the position. So far she says she’s received only one application.
DeJesus stressed again that this is a volunteer position and that “these people do not get paid.”
However, Boyer believes there are other reasons for not appointing an associate justice.”The politics on Boca aren’t the most honest and they often try to get around the process by not completing it,” and Boyer adds “If there’s a court they would be vulnerable,” and “that’s how it seems to me that they get things done in Boca.”
