The Champaign County court addressed a complaint Thursday filed by graduate student Carey Ash against the University regarding the University’s elimination of Ash from the spring 2013 student trustee ballot.

The court declared it could not process the amended complaint by Ash until it dealt with his initial complaint. On March 14, Ash filed for a temporary injunction to suspend the student trustee election, which would allow him time to get on the ballot following in-state residency disputes with Dean of Students Kenneth Ballom. Ash also filed for a restraining order stopping Ballom and Rodney Hoewing of the Office of the Registrar, from allowing him on the ballot.

Ash dropped the request for a temporary injunction because the election ended. He also withdrew the complaint against Hoewing because “Rodney didn’t make the decision barring me from the ballot, (so) he didn’t have enough in it to legally be a defendant, so we dropped the claim against him,” Ash said.

The amended complaint is the same as the original complaint without the request for a temporary injunction.

William Brinkmann, representing the University, asked for 21 days to respond to Ash’s amended complaint. The judge granted the request.

“We didn’t know that he was going to dismiss Hoewing (from the complaint) until just today actually, and so we have a new complaint, an amended complaint that we are going to review,” Brinkmann said. “Then, we are going to respond to it either by answering it or attacking it, depending on what our review reveals to us. At this point, I don’t know how we’re going to respond because I haven’t studied this new pleading yet.”

The University has 21 days to respond to Ash’s complaint or concede that Ash is an Illinois resident.

“The University can make this go away by saying ‘he lives here,’” Ash said.

Beginning in February, Ash submitted his application for candidacy as student trustee. Dean Ballom denied Ash’s application because Ash does not meet the requirements set forth by the University for residency status in the student code.

The requirements used to determine residency status for admission and tuition assessment are also used to determine residency status when evaluating applicants for student trustee candidacy.

These requirements include being a financially independent Illinois resident for one year. Students seeking in-state residency status for admission and tuition reasons must also earn a minimum of $12,000 outside of University employment. University employment includes graduate assistantships and student employment. This minimum increases to $14,000 in fall 2013.

“Although the 2011 tax document you provided shows income just slightly above that at minimum, internal record shows you receiving income for grad employment and educational loans,” Ballom said in an email to Ash dated Feb. 27.

Ash will be a law clerk over the summer at a law firm out-of-state, but still plans to continue with his complaint.

“This is much bigger than me and that’s why I’m still fighting it,” Ash said.

University residency requirements impede 29 percent of the student body from becoming an eligible candidate for student trustee, according to statistics taken from the University’s Division of Management Information and analyzed by The Daily Illini.

Stephanie Seawell, Graduate Employees’ Organization spokeswoman, said the University is pushing to keep this rule for purely financial reasons.

“The reason they (enforce the rule) is to make (students) have a more tenuous position and spend more money,” Seawell said. “It’s to ensure (the University has) a revenue stream.”

Seawell and Chanee Anderson, Ash’s fiancé and a graduate student at the University, were among a crowd of about 15 people who came to the hearing to support Ash. Ash waited outside of the courtroom for his supporters, shaking their hands and apologizing for the delay in resolution with the issue.

Ash said he is not the first to object to the rule but said he may be the first to file a complaint about it.

“I vote here, I’m a resident, I pay taxes here,” said Ash, listing these requirements in the University’s code, among others, that he meets.

In 21 days, “the University will either respond to the complaint or admit the facts,” Ash said.

Janelle can be reached at [email protected].