The Northwestern chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union will elect new leaders Oct. 29 after a squabble between co-director Howard Lien and the group’s executive board left the group with no permanent leadership.
Weinberg juniors Lien and Tina Valkanoff, the other co-director, both left their posts Friday after meeting with faculty advisers Mark Witte and Lane Fenrich. Weinberg junior and Daily reporter Jonathan Murray has been named interim director until the elections are conducted.
Both Lien and Valkanoff said they are interested in campaigning again for director of the group.
Members say the group still is functioning despite the lack of top leadership. Weinberg sophomore Alicia Pardo, the group’s women’s rights committee chair, said most of the group’s work is done on the committee level, and the group has continued to meet since Lien’s and Valkanoff’s departure.
“It’s a very decentralized group,” said Witte, an economics lecturer.
Group members said they were upset with Lien because he unilaterally made decisions on behalf of the group’s executive board. Lien and other group members said disputes arose over whether the group should play an icebreaker during the first meeting, how often the group would meet and who would vote for the group’s executive board.
Valkanoff said the biggest problem was that Lien violated ACLU policy during the summer when he gave ACLU-NU’s endorsement to a Chicago Anti-Bashing Network rally. The ACLU asks its campus affiliates not to endorse off-campus events, and Pardo said the group was reprimanded by the ACLU’s Illinois chapter.
Trouble cropped back up once school started when after an Oct. 8 meeting, Lien said, he and Valkanoff disagreed over Valkanoff’s desire to appoint personal friends to the group’s executive board. Lien said he thought it would be unfair to other members who also wanted the positions.
But Valkanoff said that at the time there were other positions left on the board to be filled.
Lien said Valkanoff took his disagreement as a personal attack, and he said she told him that she would no longer speak to him. Since then, Lien said Valkanoff has not returned repeated phone calls and e-mails, and only spoke to him when he directly addressed her during meetings.
“I didn’t think it was a big deal,” Lien said. “I figured we’d have a conversation about it and fix it, but she’s still not talking to me. Maybe I’m biased, but I think that’s sort of unreasonable.”
Valkanoff said the problems weren’t personal, but between the group and Lien.
“The problem is with his leadership and the rest of the executive board,” she said. “In no way is this a personal problem between him and me.”
The NU chapter of the ACLU formed in the spring with Valkanoff and Lien as co-directors.
Lien said he wants the best for the group’s future, whether he is a part of it or not.
“This is something we’ll be able to work through and it will make the group stronger,” he said. “The ACLU has a potential for a wider appeal than most of the existing activist groups. I see it as group that can put issues into the campus dialogue, can educate and can make a difference by petitioning, protesting, writing senators. That’s what’s powerful about the group.”
