Nine students were sworn into the Boca Raton student senate on June 6 – but they weren’t the same ones who were elected. At that same meeting, 17 senators-elect were dismissed from their positions.

The senators-elect failed to attend the first two meetings, causing senate to lack quorum. Senate Speaker Nicholas Kalman said, “I firmly believe that the student body in Boca has suffered a grave injustice as a result of an attempt to thwart our ability to serve and govern.”

Kalman said that this injustice led him to discuss action with Assistant Dean of Student Affairs Reginald Garcon. Based on Garcon’s recommendation, Kalman decided to allow the individuals with the next highest votes in the spring election to replace the senators-elect.

“Our senate will not be held in limbo until such time as these senators-elect feel ready to assume their offices,” Kalman said.

Most of the senators who were forced to resign by proxy ran on the same ticket. Shawn Benyo protested at the June 13 senate meeting.

During the meeting’s open forum, Benyo read a letter that the ousted senators sent to the FAU attorney, saying it was their belief that they were unconstitutionally removed from office. The senators are threatening legal action.

But the week before Kalman said, “Being a senator-elect is not a right, it is a conditional privilege.” If senators were or were not interested in coming to meetings, they had other options, he added.

Yet Benyo said that the decision “not to show up to the first two meetings [was made] as a group.”

That doesn’t matter to Kalman, as he said, “Simply choosing not to take action is not a justification for the blatant dereliction of the responsibilities of a senator-elect.”

At the June 6 meeting, the senate was able to conduct business. Student Body President Pablo Paez swore the following senators in: Sanjiv Anand, Kathryn Dyson, Juan Jaramillo, Steve Kim, Barry Martin, Vy Nguyen, Jason Perlman, Margarette Pierre, and Robert Stone.