This letter is in response to the article "Fraternity Council President Tim Bryson removed from office," which ran Sept. 22, 2015.
Doing something for the health, safety and good of another person is noble.
However, if you don't have the powers vested in yourself it is very risky. Saving someone from cardiac arrest is good only if you're certified in cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Saving someone from a blazing fire is good only if you have the right protective gear and training. Saving a fellow fraternity member's life from alcohol poisoning is whopping since those in undergrad here aren't medically educated to do that.
College is known for almost ubiquitous underage drinking, rampant drug use and uncivilized erotic behaviors. As good citizens of the USC community we must try to be good Gamecocks in giving advice, but not necessarily by being a decision maker for our comrades in this community. If and inevitably when students do wrong, the student organizational system is to act as a quasi-functional branch of governance that has only explicit powers given by the Board of Trustees at this university.
No student organization from my knowledge has a bureaucratic makeup that gives one member entire executive authority to curtail normal happenings. (President) Bryson was elected by the IFC, and any suggestions to change the operations of the IFC had to go through their rule-making process. He could not act on executive order like a governor or president of the United States.
The members of the student groups on campus have a hodgepodge of roles and responsibilities that they share with each other, which are difficult to understand for the callow learner. Still, the votes for his impeachment process should have been listed by name and fraternity. The impeachment process is similar to a grand jury process, but it is not to be carried out as a grand jury indictment.
The fraternities need to know how their members voted, and the public should have the right to know, too. In a presidential, gubernatorial, provincial or municipal impeachment the votes are made public not in number only, but name too.
Bryson was wrong when he tried to invoke race as being an essential factor in his ejection from the IFC. In addition, the members of the council cannot stand behind their decisions and the once-beloved President Bryson doesn't have any support from the people that put him in the post. He's gone, but he takes the discussion about how to improve USC one step further.