The Illinois Student Senate voted to sanction Student Body President Brock Gebhardt Wednesday night. The sanction passed with 20 votes in favor, 9 against and 2 abstentions.

The details of the sanction were not clarified during the meeting, Vice President-external Ryan Young said.

“A sanction really should be interpreted as the senate would have some grievances that they would like heard,” he said.

The senate first discussed the sanction for nearly two hours in a closed session of the committee of the whole before returning to public session. Amendments to the items for which Gebhardt stands accused were made after the senate returned to public session.

Gebhardt stands sanctioned on seven items: moving an executive board meeting after the date and time were ratified by the senate; making unilateral appointments to the Visioning Excellence committee, the General Education Board and the Academic Integrity Task Force; chronic tardiness to meetings; missing meetings; Open Meetings Acts violations; not providing the vice president internal the authorities necessary to fulfill his constitutional role; and unethical behavior.

Gebhardt said many of these items are unfounded and that his appointments to the committee, board and task force were within his constitutional right of senate proceedings. He said there is not guidance in the governing documents regarding appointments to those committees and that his behavior was similar to that of previous student body presidents.

“I was working with precedent and under the assumption that I had been elected with this authority in mind,” he said.

Gebhardt also said many of the items were misconceived by the senate, such as the issue of “chronic tardiness.”

“I schedule meetings back-to-back with as many students and student groups as possible,” he said. “Sometimes I can be several minutes late to meetings, but I always make an effort to inform those with whom I meet.”

Gold said the only item he brought to the sanction was about Gebhardt’s unethical behavior toward him. He said he had been an advocate of Gebhardt throughout the discussion of the sanction during the past week until he had a phone conversation with the student body president Monday night.

“(Gebhardt) admitted to me that his actions against me were unethical and immoral,” he said. “He admitted to me that he purposefully did not appoint me to a committee position because some people told him not to give me a committee spot.”

Young said regardless of the sanction, Gebhardt is still the student body president, still represents the entire campus to the administration and outside entities and nothing that occurred at the ISS meeting Wednesday changes that fact.

Gebhardt said people involved in the discussion at the meeting freely admitted what they had said was petty.

“I refuse to mirror that pettiness,” Gebhardt said. “I believe in student government, and I will continue working collaboratively to improve student lives and to serve the student body.”

Tyler can be reached at [email protected].

Editor’s Note: A previous version of this article incorrectly listed one of seven sanctions as ‘unethical behavior toward Senator Matt Gold’. The sanction was not specifically referencing Gold. The Daily Illini regrets this error.