AUSA candidate under fire for tribal themed election campaign

One of the AUSA Societies president nominees has had their campaign criticised- with university officials letting it slip to the entire body of candidates.


The Tab can reveal that Ergun Karasalih, a candidate for the President of Societies and Student Activities, has been accused of racism by an AUSA official in an email that was then mistakenly sent to Ergun himself.

Jennifer Krase, AUSA’s Education Development Coordinator, expressed her dissatisfaction that it had been allowed to go public in what was meant to be a private email to the elections committee, but instead sent to all the elections candidates.

Ergun’s slogan for the campaign is “#jointhetribE” and shows the candidate in Native American attire, with ‘traditional’ music in the background.

Jennifer Krase wrote, “On a personal level the materials make me deeply uncomfortable and it’s embarrassing not to be able to acknowledge the issue or even comment openly.”

There are those that believe this to be a gross overreaction. The Tab was contacted by one of Ergun’s friends who said  that  Ergun’s campaign was being treated harshly and that perceiving it as racist was an exaggeration. They went on to state that Ergun “is the least racist person ever.”

Regardless of this, it must be questioned why the Elections Committee allowed for the campaign to go public in the first place if it was going to cause such a stir.

The campaign video and photos remain public at this point, and it remains to be seen if any form of action will be taken by AUSA.