The OC Blog Back Issues Our Mission Contact Us Masthead
Sudsy Wants You to Join the Oregon Commentator
 

Nix resigns

Derek Nix, campaign manager for the Oregon Action Team slate and candidate for a PFC Senate seat, has resigned from his position as Student Senate Administrative Assistant. In his resignation letter, sent out Monday morning and acquired via a public record’s request, Nix said verbal conduct in the workplace that may be interpreted “to cause professional harm to my position in the ASUO and worse, to my personal safety,” led to his resignation effective immediately.

Over the last two weeks, I have been subject to repeated workplace harassment that threatened me with my job, the details of which have been reported to the Personnel Committee, but it culminated Thursday when Senator Gulley threatened me with physical injury. Senator Gulley had and has no evidence to support his slanderous accusations at Wednesday night’s Senate meeting.

The controversy started when some numskull decided to allow students to be in charge of millions of dollars. The current controversy, however, began last week when an anonymous e-mail was sent to all senators asking them to “trim the fat from the pfc budget” and blamed the racism card for a high PFC budget. The email was some kind of gag or political stunt. Gulley accused Nix for creating the e-mail (ODE story on last week’s tribulations here.) Senator Diego Hernandez responded, saying he’s tired of dealing with ignorant people everyday:

Race isn’t about skin color, it is about history, relations of power, structures and cultural norms. The comments of the email assume that racism is the mere notice of race, racism is about hierarchy, inequality, and power, which comes from both individual (personal) and structural or institutional (group). So before you start talking about race, make sure you know what the fuck you’re talking about.

The Senate passed the PFC budget in Wednesday’s meeting with little controversy, but postponed the ADFC budget. Unfortunately, I left halfway through and missed the shouting matches. In Nix’s resignation letter, he thanked Senator Zavrel and the rest of the Personal Committee for investigating his safety concerns. He said Rock the Yellow, a programs based slate, is to blame for the slander.

The baseless and false accusations that were waged against my character have one thing in common: they all come from people who work for Kari and Jesse, and thus are due solely to the fact that I am a candidate in the upcoming ASUO Elections. It’s unfortunate that these students have resorted yet again to going after a position instead of focusing on the issues at hand and are incapable of separating my professional job with my political aspirations, as I have successfully learned to do.

Sen. Gulley sent out a brief response, saying he felt silly for taking “this ridiculous resignation letter seriously enough to respond,” at no time did he physically threaten Nix, and said that Nix is a liar. Sen. Gulley also hopes that everyone enjoyed the sun on Sunday.

  1. Ossie says:

    Thunderlove, you just stick to your roots and stay out of all this mayhem. Let the other candidates destroy eachother, then you can swoop in with a big win.

  2. ThunderLove says:

    I’m feeling left out of all the political slander going on right now. Anyone willing to take some shots at me? Jessie Hough? Nix? Gulley? Lets throw down some “Yo Mama” type diss contests

  3. Vincent. says:

    How do you spell “Gulley”?

    W – A – N – K – E – R

  4. Timothy says:

    I like that a dude who is even whiter than me fancies himself as the only one who really understands racism.

  5. Olly says:

    Gulley: “…but I think more often humor is used as an excuse for White people to misrepresent people of color, women, and the sexually marginalized. I get the feeling that White people feel that as long as there is a punch line, they can say whatever they want, no matter how untrue or damaging.

  6. Vincent says:

    Alright. Well, let’s bring it all back home:

    1) Someone’s a wanker
    2) Someone else is a racist, or something.
    3) Someone resigned because of the wanker, or maybe because he was a racist or something
    4) The wanker calls the supposed racist a liar
    5) The alleged racist says it’s all due to the nefarious plotting of some piss fetishists who’re into “Rocking the Yellow” or some such thing
    6) Some twit says no one should talk about racism unless they talk about racism in ways that he approves of
    7) Those cartoon shoes really chewed scenery in Roger Rabbit when they were getting killed by acid.

    I think that about sums things up.

  7. CJ Ciaramella says:

    I’ve never fully understood the word tangent until right now.

  8. Vincent says:

    I wonder if those were the same magic talking shoes that later acted in the popular Saturday morning cartoon “Hammer Man.” I’ve always been a fan of their work.

  9. CJ Ciaramella says:

    Ah, remember when those shoes got dissolved in the cartoon-killing acid. So creepy!

  10. CJ Ciaramella says:

    No, I was thinking more like this.

  11. Vincent says:

    Roger Rabbit was white. So was the judge. In fact, the only people of color in that film are a pack of shiftless weasels with names like “Stupid”, “Greasy”, and “Psycho”. Talk about a racist fucking movie.

    Drink!

  12. Vincent says:

    Would it end like this?:

    “So anyways, they all end up in Trondheim.”

  13. Ossie says:

    Gulley should watch “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” 50 times.

  14. CJ Ciaramella says:

    No joke, sir. If I was joking, it would start out like this:

    “So a family walks into a talent agency …”

  15. Vincent says:

    Was that supposed to be a joke? With a punchline?

    Racist!

    Drink!

  16. CJ Ciaramella says:

    No, really. I’m completely trashed. And I would thow the grenade right back at you. Oh, what now?

  17. Vincent. says:

    I’d like to throw a grenade at you.

  18. CJ Ciaramella says:

    Dammit, Vincent. You’re just creating excuses to drink. Not that I’m opposed, but now I’m really drunk. Damn you!

  19. Vincent. says:

    There has been a lot of talk about how honest discussion about racial issues can bridge the gap between different communities, but I think more often racial issues are used as an excuse for puffed-up serial victims like Nate Gulley to misrepresent pretty much anyone they disagree with. I get the feeling that as long as there are people out there that craven, dishonest, and manipulative people like Nate Gulley disagree with, moral lightweights like Nate Gulley will attempt at every turn to stifle debate and slander their opponents by playing the race card, no matter how untrue or damaging.

  20. Jan says:

    ” … I think more often humor is used as an excuse for White people to misrepresent people of color, women, and the sexually marginalized.”

    I guess Nate Gulley has never heard Dave Chappelle’s comedy. He never talks about race or women. Nope.

  21. Sean says:

    Hahaha.
    Oh, I laughed. You racist, CJ.

  22. CJ Ciaramella says:

    Speaking of Gulley’s incoherent moralizing, look what I found on an NPR blog by the esteemed ASUO senator:

    “There has been a lot of talk about how humor can bridge the gap between different communities, but I think more often humor is used as an excuse for White people to misrepresent people of color, women, and the sexually marginalized. I get the feeling that White people feel that as long as there is a punch line, they can say whatever they want, no matter how untrue or damaging.”

  23. Vincent. says:

    That Diego Hernandez quote left me thinking, “I wonder if Diego Hernandez knows what the fuck he’s talking about, or if he’s just mouthing some smart-sounding words he learned in class.”

  24. Timothy says:

    Nate Gulley is definitely in the running for the Elliot Spitzer Memorial Award for Incoherent Moralizing.

  25. BR says:

    Is this the same Nate Gulley that said he wanted to throw grenades at something that rhymed with schmapailiou?

  26. CJ Ciaramella says:

    “The controversy started when some numskull decided to allow students to be in charge of millions of dollars.”

    Cheers to that.

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.