Mighty Oregon campaign advisor Evan Roth filed a grievance towards the Ducks Like You campaign Tuesday night, citing that “Ducks Like You has been unable to control the behavior of their individual volunteers,” according to the grievance.
In the grievance, multiple campaign volunteers and students running for a position felt that they were being intimidated and harassed by some Ducks Like You volunteers. Intimidation and harassment is a violation of Elections Rule 9.8, which states both actions are severe campaign violations.
One of the accounts of intimidation and harassment in the grievance was from Mighty Oregon senatorial candidate Mack Smith. In the grievance, Smith recalls that while she was campaigning, she approached a student and asked if he had heard about Mighty Oregon. According to Smith, the student responded by saying: “Yeah, the campaign with blatant racism and bigotry.”
“When I approached him he wasn’t wearing any campaign related shirts,” Smith said. “After he talked to me, he went over to the Ducks Like You campaign table and got a shirt and started campaigning.”
Another account from the grievance states that UO student Charlie Truxal was approached by a Ducks Like You volunteer, who asked him if he had voted yet. Truxal responded by saying that he was planning on voting for Mighty Oregon. According to the grievance, the volunteer then said verbatim: “Go fuck yourself” to Truxal.
According to Evan Roth, multiple volunteers approached Ducks Like You Campaign Manager Helena Schlegel and Ducks Like You campaign advisor Lamar Wise.
“Multiple people from our campaign approached (Wise and Schlegel) but they said that it was just one of those things and that they’re not able to control the actions of each individual volunteer,” Roth said.
“First off, I was never approached as the grievance stated regarding these allegations,” Schlegel said. “This is an Alex Titus issue. If Mighty Oregon does not want everyone, not just “volunteers” to want to engage in critical conversations about race, then maybe Mighty Oregon should not have openly racist members and supporters.”
The “Alex Titus issue” is a reference to the dorm room conversation between ASUO presidential candidate Thomas Tullis, Marshall Kosloff, Ben Bowman and Titus. The conversation was recorded and subsequently released to the public. Some students took offense to some of Titus’ remarks. The students that appeared at the ASUO Senate meeting on April 9, considered some of the remarks racist.
“The majority of our organizers were the ones called ‘motherfuckers’ (in the recording). This is our daily lives,” Schlegel said. “Our attempts to address cultural competency are being misquoted and misconstrued in order to point Ducks Like You in a bad light.”
Roth requested in the grievance that Ducks Like You be placed on prohibition from campaigning for an undefined period in order to “dissuade further offenses.”
“There were other incidents but some people on our campaign wanted to stay anonymous,” Roth said. “It’s unfortunate that this is happening and that people are being called racist. That’s rough for them and, for some, this is their first experience with the ASUO.”
“I will be passing this onto the ASUO Constitution Court because the Elections Board is in an ambiguous place right now,” ASUO Elections Board Member Pat Chaney said. “It’s up in the air whether or not the Elections Board can act now.”
According to Chaney, he will not be involved when the court reviews or decides on the grievance.
Evan Roth’s grievance filed against the Ducks Like You campaign.