ASNMU president Ben Stanley should resign from his position immediately to protect the integrity of NMU and its student government.

Stanley has a history of showing a lack of respect, not just for rules in general, but for most people he comes in contact with.

Last April, Stanley was disqualified from running for ASNMU presidency because he was responsible for breaking five ASNMU election rules, of the eight alleged, which were upheld by ASJ, including illegally posting campus literature and canvassing residence halls without proper approval.

In August 2009, Stanley was charged with one count of expired registration and one count of failure to show insurance, according to the April 14 Mining Journal article title “Man jailed for contempt of court.” It took Stanley more than three months to pay off his $40 ticket for expired car registration.

After these two counts, Stanley has been in and out of court for various reasons, including a chicken-at-large citation, three dog-at-large citations and two traffic citations. For these subsequent citations, court documents show Stanley took months to pay off his late fines.

He failed to show up to many court hearings, some of which Stanley requested himself. He finally was held in contempt of court for not showing up to another scheduled hearing. This one stemmed from an chicken-at-large citation.

Stanley went to jail, not for an chicken-at-large citation, but for showing an utter lack of respect for the court system.

“When you casually act like you can show or not show (in court) at your pleasure … it gets a little offensive after a while,” Judge Kangas said, who presided over Stanley’s contempt of court hearing. “It’s not about fines. It’s about treating everybody else like they don’t matter and you’re the only one who does.”

When Stanley was asked by Kangas if he knew he had “harassed everyone in this process,” Stanley agreed that he had.

The students of NMU deserve an ASNMU president that has demonstrated his or her commitment to helping others and following established rules. Ben Stanley has done none of this; he has done the complete opposite. Stanley said he wants students to hold him responsible for his actions and they should.

Ben Stanley cannot be trusted with the potential new power to appoint members of the ASNMU Judiciary, given that he can’t even follow ASNMU election rules or attend scheduled court hearings.

Without the resignation of ASNMU president Ben Stanley, ASNMU will lose the integrity that it has managed to retain over the years.

Stanley has no respect for rules or authority figures. This is bound to continue in his role of ASNMU president.