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The Student Union is elected by the student body with the understanding that it is going to work on pertinent student issues and advocate on behalf of its constituency. It is not elected to play petty political games or spend its time backhandedly attacking its members.

The Unions focus on Michael Goldman 08 for the past several weeks has been nothing less than shameful. The constant effort to impeach him, even though he has already been formally censured, is eating away valuable time that the Union could be using to actually improve the lives of Brandeis students. If the Union was as outraged over Goldmans actions as it keeps claiming it is, it should have impeached him last week. He has been censured, and the issue can now be dropped.

A recently elected quad Senator has spent his time putting together a UJ case against Goldman. With his encouragement, another student then submitted it under her name. The plaintiff declared on Tuesday in the Justice, I didnt really know what would come of it. What is clear now is that she also did not know much about the case at all, including who it named or what claims it made.

For Union members to coerce non-Union members into submitting a case and then passing it off as coming from the students is disgraceful. This is a complete waste of time, and does nothing for the student body. This Senators constituency should demand better.

As an example of what the Union should be focusing on, we feel that an admirable job has been done thus far dealing with the Ridgewood noise complaints (even though a resolution has not been found). This is an important issue to the student body. This is the sort of project that Union members were elected to handle. Is there anything else that the Union can point to as a success for this semester?

A visit to the Union website gives valuable insight into the non-activity of our student government. There is a section of the site where Union members can submit weekly project reports. Each week, one half to two-thirds of the Union fails to do so. Some members of the Executive Board have not submitted a project report this semester. Kimberlee Bachman 08, Darren Gallant 08, and Jenna Brofsky 10 should be commended for submitting a report every week of September, which is something that the rest of the Union should strive to emulate.

In addition to a lack of project reports, there have been no Union minutes or agendas posted since last February. No Union Judiciary court opinions have been posted since 2005. What exactly is the Union doing with its time, besides hassling Secretary Goldman?

Far too much time and far too many words have been spent on the Goldman debacle. The Union had its chance to impeach Michael Goldman. It chose not to. Its time to move on.