Raue survives board vote

By Oscar Coleman

The activist vice-president of the University of Sydney Union (USU), Tom Raue, will remain in his current position following the failure of a dismissal motion against him.

Six of the 11 directors voted for his removal, falling short of the two-thirds majority required to expel Mr Raue from the board. The motion followed Mr Raue’s decision to leak part of an internal document to student newspaper Honi Soit. An injunction against the motion for dismissal was subsequently overturned by the Supreme Court.

The leaked documents implied that NSW Police had been instructed by university staff to enter the campus during protracted industrial action in 2013, leading to the arrest of several students. The documents appeared to contradict the university’s official position to not “influence or guide police operations” against student protestors.

Mr Raue’s attempts to remain on the board were bolstered by a grassroots “Stand With Raue” student group, which collected 645 signatures in support of the vice-president. It also received public support from Greens senator Lee Rhiannon and MLC David Shoebridge.

Laura Webster, a coordinator of the group, was critical of the student union and its leaders.

“The USU executive attempts to remove Tom from [the] board proves they will keep university management happy at the expense of student welfare.”

“The ‘Stand with Raue’ movement proves that student democracy does not end at the ballot box and hopefully the candidates running for board this year all run on platforms of transparency and student welfare above everything else.”

The special meeting of the board included a fiery question and answer session in which Patrick Massarani, an undergraduate fellow of the University Senate, criticised the USU for wasting students’ money on legal funds.

Speaking only on his own behalf, he suggested that USU President Hannah Morris be investigated and possibly censured for withholding information regarding the re-appointment of two Senate-appointed board directors. Both were likely to have voted to remove Mr Raue, had other board members not discovered that their terms had expired, rendering them ineligible to participate.

The total cost of legal action has not yet been disclosed by the union but is expected to be in the tens of thousands of dollars. Ms Webster urges the USU to “make this figure available ASAP considering it was student money spent”.

The failure of the dismissal motion means that no board director has been ejected since 2011, when two directors were removed following a University Senate investigation into misconduct during the 2010 election.