ASUWT presidential removal leads to court case, community petition
The October removal of former ASUWT president Elias Feleke has resulted in legal action against ASUWT members and UWT as a whole.
By Michaela Ely
Editor’s note: Current ASUWT president Rae Watkins is a member of The Ledger staff as an opinion writer. They had no involvement whatsoever with the production of this article or previous coverage of the ASUWT conflict described in this article, and have not been allowed to view drafts, in part or whole, of this or previous articles on the subject before those articles were published. Watkins has meticulously maintained editorial distance from The Ledger’s work on this subject, and we stand by the ethical rigor of our reporting.
Tensions at ASUWT and the university in general reached a boil during winter quarter over a months-long debate over the fairness of the removal of former ASUWT president Elias Feleke.
Feleke was removed from his position as ASUWT president in late October, but the reason for that decision has been largely unavailable to the public because the hearing occurred in an executive session of an ASUWT Senate meeting. .
In an interview with The Ledger, Speaker of the ASUWT Senate Bryce Scholten said Feleke, who had the option to have the hearing held publicly or in an executive session, chose an executive session. The Ledger has asked for confirmation from Feleke, but as of March 5 he has not responded.
The Ledger has reached out to Feleke on numerous occasions, but he would not consent to an interview unless articles regarding his removal from Nov. 24 and Dec. 15 of last year were removed from The Ledger’s website.
Documentation of the hearing is protected from public records requests because it relates to complaints against a public official, according to the Municipal Research and Services Center of Washington. Minutes are also not required to be taken at an executive session; if notes are taken they may be subject to public records requests.
The Ledger has made public records requests to see if any documents from the executive session can be obtained. The Ledger had not yet received them at the time of publication.
Feleke says his removal was unfair and unlawful. He maintains not only that he did his job as president well, but also that his removal violated his First and Fifth Amendment rights. He further alleged in several public statements that he was impeached at the behest of then-vice-president Rae Watkins, who was voted into the presidency role following his removal. (The process that occurred with Feleke was not an impeachment; there is no method for impeachment present in the ASUWT Constitution, only a process for removal.)
“At the conclusion of the impeachment hearing, the Vice President, who provided the allegations in the proceedings, made closing remarks characterizing me as an ‘oppressor’ and explicitly encouraging the Senate to disregard due process and any lack of evidence. This statement was defamatory and a clear attempt to influence the outcome of the vote encouraging waiving factual deliberation. This conflicts with the transparency and accountability principles embedded in RCW 42.30 and our very basic 5th Amendment rights,” Feleke wrote in email to UWT Chancellor Sheila Edwards Lange, according to public record court documents.
Watkins also declined to comment to The Ledger, citing that they will not comment or report on ASUWT matters.
Feleke has sought judicial review of his removal, naming Watkins, Scholten and ASUWT advisor Conor Leary in a Dec. 2 civil suit, accusing them of violating the Open Public Meetings Act (OPMA) and other violations of state laws regarding the use of executive sessions. (Leary, who is the advisor for ASUWT, was also the staff advisor for The Ledger until the beginning of winter quarter, when that role was taken over by a new hire.)
What has followed is months of conflict within and between the student governments of both the Tacoma and Seattle campuses, including UW Seattle’s student government in December formally declining to recognize Watkins as the ASUWT president.
On Dec. 4, the ASUW Board of Directors, the student government representing the Seattle campus, passed a bill criticizing Watkins for stating in a Nov. 13 UW Board of Regents report that communicating with ASUW “has been difficult given the connections to ASUWT’s removed President.” The Dec. 4 bill acknowledged Watkins as vice-president, rather than president, and invited the ASUWT executive board to a reconciliation meeting.
Calls for action have intensified in recent weeks, with public statements being published by RSOs at UWT; and The Daily, UW Seattle’s student publication, publishing an article Feb. 27 that details Feleke’s legal bid.
The next court date in Feleke’s legal bid to determine whether ASUWT violated OPMA and whether his removal should be considered “null and void under RCW 42.30.060” is April 3, when a Pierce County superior court judge is set to consider these issues.
The removal
Two questions stem from Feleke’s October removal from ASUWT. First, was he doing the job properly? And second, did his removal follow ASUWT procedures and state law?
In an ASUWT Senate meeting Sept. 23, Pre-Major Senator Zaid Naamat motioned to call a hearing for the removal of Feleke, which School of Education Senator Chrystal Gonzales seconded. That hearing occurred Oct. 21 in an executive session of an ASUWT Senate meeting.
In an interview with The Ledger, Scholten said that Feleke had 21 days after he received a copy of a documented list of complaints to compile his defense, gather testimonies and witnesses and explain why he should not be removed. A Feb. 27 article by The Daily states that “according to Feleke, he sent his defense evidence packet of over 100 pages to ASUWT advisor Conor Leary on Oct. 21, 2025, at 8 a.m.” This was 30 minutes before the hearing was scheduled to begin.
Feleke was removed from office via a unanimous vote from the ASUWT Senate immediately following the executive session. This was due to eight violations of the ASUWT bylaws, according to ASUWT Executive Board minutes from Oct. 31, as well as a documented list of complaints that was presented during an executive session in the Oct. 21 Senate meeting. (Those complaints are shielded from public records requests.)
“I’ve definitely heard from several students that the Senate chose to have the hearing in executive session because we were trying to conceal evidence,” Scholten told The Ledger. “(But Feleke) was given the option to have it publicly or (in) executive session. The reason that there are meeting minutes for that meeting specifically, but there are no meeting minutes for the hearing itself is because it was held in executive session per his request.”
Feleke says that a 60 day accountability plan, a process outlined in Title IX of the ASUWT Bylaws, never occurred. Former ASUWT Director of Internal Affairs and current Vice President Maxwell Kao began the Internal Accountability Policy process with its first step, a written warning. The policy never proceeded to the second step, a 60 day accountability plan which can end in the third and final step – a removal meeting – if the offending party fails to follow the plan at any point.
Feleke was removed from office before he would have had an opportunity to participate in that accountability plan. However, his removal happened through a separate process from the ASUWT Internal Accountability Policy, and that separate process didn’t require completing the accountability policy.
According to the ASUWT Constitution, members of the Executive Board may be removed for failure to carry out duties or responsibilities established in the ASUWT Constitution or Executive Bylaws, or complete failure to represent student interests and concerns, violation of state, federal, or municipal law, or University policy, in a manner that hurts student interests or represents judgment not appropriate to the office or initiation of the final stage of the ASUWT Internal Accountability Policy.
The Senate can then review complaints against that Executive Board member by a vote of a majority of the Executive Board or a majority of the seated membership of the Senate, or if a petition is submitted to the Senate that includes at least five percent of ASUWT members.
If the Senate finds by a two-thirds majority that the complaint is justified, that member of the Executive Board shall be removed from office. That’s what happened to Feleke.
“Maxwell had already started an accountability process. … but the hearing and accountability can be two separate things, and the accountability process that Maxwell had [Feleke] sign, he signed on to six bylaw/constitution violations when one is enough to get removed,” Scholten told The Ledger.
The Feb. 27 article by The Daily referenced a warning letter, written by Kao, that Feleke signed on Sept. 17. The Ledger does not have access to this document, but Feleke described the written warning as a “list of grievances” in the article by The Daily.
“I was basically signed under duress,” Feleke said to The Daily. “I was told verbatim, ‘You cannot leave this room until this is signed.’ I was told as well that this would not lead to any disciplinary actions and it would only be for the record.”
According to The Daily, this warning letter cited “ASUWT Senate communication, tri-campus government communication, ASUWT representation, student body opinion authentication, official communication of the senate opinion to the public, and upholding fair elections for all ASUWT student government positions” as areas where Feleke allegedly failed to carry out his duties as president.
The Ledger has submitted public records requests regarding Feleke’s removal, but had not yet received them at the time of publication.
Public statements
At least two student clubs have shared Feleke’s calls for the removal of Watkins as president and an investigation into Leary’s actions regarding Feleke’s removal.
The Black Student Union at UWT (BSU) posted a now-unavailable statement on Instagram in collaboration with Feleke and the Somali Student Association, describing “an unprecedented era of internal dysfunction, illegal conduct, and the strategic erasure of student-led democracy” amid “the targeted removal” of Feleke. An attached petition called for the removal of Watkins and an investigation into Leary, but it has also been removed from BSU’s Linktree.
The post, which accrued hundreds of “likes,” has been missing from BSU’s Instagram page since March 4. When The Ledger emailed the club to ask why the post was no longer available, and whether BSU still stands by the claims made in the post, BSU Secretary Abigail Harriott responded: “We have nothing to say on that matter.”
Feleke “was impeached(sic) at the behest of Vice-President Rae Watkins” the post alleged, claiming that Watkins claimed the role of president in a “power grab.” The post further claimed that Leary omitted evidence from the removal process.
The post included a statement from current BSU president, Matthew Hankerson, who is also the former ASUWT Director of Outreach. Hankerson resigned from his position with ASUWT in late January, citing that challenges within the organization conflicted with his “personal values around transparency and due process.”
The post called on UWT’s administration to “end their silence,” which it described as a “green light for the continued weaponization of government against the Black community.”
Though Feleke’s hearing occurred in executive session, some have made public statements on the matter. Commuter Senator from ASUWB Waylon Menzia, in the now-inaccessible BSU Instagram post, commented: “The Senate voted unanimously to remove the former President, within their powers, for not doing his job.”
Since his removal from office, Feleke has publicly requested a rehearing on several occasions.
“I’m here asking for nothing more than a fair rehearing process. I’ve been trying to keep this process as internal as possible to maintain the dignity of ASUWT as an organization. I’m asking that we have a fair trial using all of the evidence that was given,” Feleke said in the Nov. 25 ASUWT Senate meeting. “I’m asking that every single piece of evidence that was given be included in the future.”
The Ledger published an opinion article Nov. 24 detailing some of the reasoning behind Feleke’s removal. He has since referred to that article as a “digital lynching” and “grounds for defamation” during the Dec. 9 ASUWT Senate meeting.
The Dec. 9 ASUWT Senate meeting featured public comment from Feleke, as well as an introduction to a Senate bill by Milgard Business Senator Jayven Coppage that would call for a rehearing and establish a judicial committee for ASUWT.
“I want to emphasize this clearly: I’m not asking anyone to resign. I am… not seeking to remove anyone in their role, and my goal is fairness and a lawful process. And I’m fully open to resolving that internally through the corrective legislation already introduced in the Senate, which would make further court involvement unnecessary,” Feleke said in the Dec. 5 Executive Board meeting.
Feleke has also made appearances at other meetings to plead his case, such as the Jan. 8 Board of Regents meeting.
“To put it plainly, I am here today because I was advised by Chancellor [Sheila Edwards] Lange that there is no internal mechanism at UW Tacoma capable of reviewing or overturning this decision, and that concerns of this nature should be brought to this board and to the Superior Court instead,” Feleke told the Board of Directors, according to an article by The Daily. “I am following that guidance.”
The court case
Feleke brought the matter to Pierce County Superior Court in December.
He has filed two separate court cases that name both UWT and ASUWT, as well as Watkins, Scholten and Leary. His first case was filed Dec. 2 and is ongoing, but his second case, filed Dec. 10, was dismissed due to his failure to appear in court, according to court records.
In an email with The Ledger, Chancellor Lange stated that it is university policy for administration and staff not to comment on personnel matters within ASUWT, but that she believes in student leadership.
In the public records for both cases, Feleke stated that he “submitted multiple public records requests to the University of Washington Public Records Office seeking communications between ASUWT, UW Tacoma administration, and Student Affairs staff.” These requests were denied because of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), which protects the privacy of certain student education records. His requests, #25-1083 and #25-1084 asked for “all emails and text messages regarding ASUWT business sent by Acting President Rae Watkins,” from Aug.1, 2025 to Nov. 21, 2025 and “all emails and teams messages sent by Sheila Lange to Connor Leary and vice-versa.”
In his Dec. 2 case, Feleke asked for a temporary restraining order that would prohibit both UWT and ASUWT from enforcing his removal. This motion was denied Dec. 3 as it did not appear clear to the judge in the case that irreparable loss would occur if the opposition was given the opportunity to be heard prior to a ruling on the preliminary injunction, according to public record court documents. The case asks the court to decide whether ASUWT violated OPMA in regards to Feleke’s removal and whether the actions taken by ASUWT’s Senate should be null and void under the “secret voting” section of OPMA.
The next hearing on those arguments is set for April 3.
ASUW involvement
Feleke has not been alone in his pursuit of a rehearing over his removal. His brother, and former 2023-2024 ASUW president, Jacob Feleke has also spoken up on his behalf at the Nov. 25 ASUWT Senate meeting and the Dec. 5 ASUWT Executive Board meeting.
Jacob Feleke has also initiated emails on behalf of his brother and is blind copied on several of Elias Feleke’s email communications to UWT administration and other parties. He was involved in an email thread with UW’s Office of Public Records and blind copied on another correspondence with said office as well as correspondence with the UWT Chancellor.
The ASUW president and vice president, Nandana Jaideep and Sonal Virk, have also been blind copied on email correspondence with UWT’s administration, specifically emails with the subject line, “Request for Administrative Review of Improper ASUWT Impeachment Proceedings,” and “Senate Appeal for Re-hearing,” according to public record court documents.
“I’m speaking today [for] not just my brother, as Elias’ brother, but as someone who has served as a student body president and understands how easily misinformation can damage both people and institutions, like ASUWT and UW Tacoma,” Jacob Feleke said at the Nov. 25 ASUWT Senate meeting. “I’m not here to dispute any outcomes, I’m here to insist that the truth matters, and that no one should be judged on narratives that have not been verified.”
