NYU Law SBA Scandal Resolution: Administration Throws Former Treasurer Under The Bus

Remember the recent NYU Law SBA squabble between its President and former Treasurer? You'd think something of this magnitude would just kind of fade into the background, but the NYU administration decided to give this thing new life. The administration conducted an investigation into the dispute. And the administration is coming down on the side of President Party Law....

Last month, we brought you the story of a student bar association dust up at NYU Law School.

The NYU SBA Treasurer, whom we called “Cashing Out,” resigned her position. The SBA President, “Party Law,” wrote an email to the entire student body, accusing the treasurer of making a lot of errors. The treasurer responded, accusing the SBA President of misappropriating funds.

OH MY GOD, WHAT’S THAT BEHIND YOU????

Just kidding. Just trying to keep you awake during this riveting retelling of accounting inconsistencies by two self-important NYU kids who should be preparing for callbacks now.

You’d think something of this magnitude would just kind of fade into the background, but the NYU administration decided to give this thing new life. The administration conducted an investigation into the dispute.

And the administration is coming down on the side of Party Law….

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I’m surprised that the NYU administration weighed in on this at all, but I guess Cashing Out’s hard-hitting allegation — “over the past school year, over $25,000 of SBA funding was paid personally to Party Law as ‘reimbursements’ for parties thrown throughout the year” — was just too juicy to let stand.

Here’s the email from the law school:

Dear Students:

On August 31, SBA President [Party Law] sent an email to all 2L and 3L students explaining the circumstances under which SBA treasurer [Cashing Out] resigned her position. In response, on September 14, Cashing Out sent an email to the 2L class entitled “SBA Ex-treasurer Reply and Possible Misappropriation of Funds.” Cashing Out’s email raised the possibility of improprieties regarding the use of SBA funds, and we at the Law School felt obligated to investigate this allegation.

Thomas Clark, Director of the Office of Financial Management and I have conducted an investigation into this matter and the Financial Management staff has performed a thorough internal audit of the SBA expenditures during the 2010-11 school year. The conclusion of the investigation was that there was no impropriety of any sort.

Sincerely,

Paul O’Grady
Acting Assistant Dean for Student Affairs

Okay, the school’s investigation absolves Party Law from any wrongdoing — but what about the stuff the President said about Cashing Out?

Specifically, we learned that the reconciliations due in the spring for the prior year had not been submitted to the school, that the current academic year budget had not been submitted, that funds had not been deposited in the SBA account, and that no student group budgets had been reviewed or approved. Later, we met with the elected Treasuer to discuss these issues. The following day, the elected Treasurer informed us that she did not think that it would be beneficial to her or to any student group for her to continue as Treasurer, and she then tendered her resignation in the early evening, mere hours before the start of classes.

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The school seems silent as to whether or not the treasurer did anything wrong, which arguably leaves the President’s allegations about Cashing Out still standing.

Not that Cashing Out (or anybody else on campus) should really care. You go to law school to get a job, not to play pretend government.

Earlier: NYU Law: SBA President v. Treasurer v. Decorum v. Things Law Students Care About