Special Note: An unredacted version of the Internal Affairs special meeting minutes was uploaded to the Washburn Student Government Association website. The unredacted document was downloaded by the author on Nov. 21, 2025 at 2:41 p.m. and was used as a source in this article. The unredacted document has since been removed from the WSGA website. The redacted version remained on the WSGA website until Dec. 12. President Coulter requested that the document be removed altogether from the WSGA website. In an effort to conserve the information, Student Media has saved the document and in the interest of transparency, has made it available to the student body of Washburn University. 

Washburn Student Government Association President, Kate Coulter, was issued a written warning after she was found guilty of misfeasance in relation to legislative obstruction, after a four-week investigation was conducted by the Internal Affairs committee. 

The Merriam Webster definition of misfeasance is the performance of a lawful action (as an official duty) in an illegal or improper manner or with an improper or corrupt motive.

The investigation into Coulter began after a three page job performance incident report was submitted anonymously to the Internal Affairs Committee. 

Kira Roth, Chief of Staff, found the document that was slid underneath the door of the WSGA office on the night of Sunday, Oct. 19, when she went in to complete payroll. 

All Washburn students are able to file a job performance incident report on any member of WSGA. Once an incident report is received, the Internal Affairs Committee begins a job evaluation process. 

The Internal Affairs comittee is built from representatives from each of the WSGA standing committees, as well as the Parliamentarian and the Speaker. The Chief of Staff is considered an Ex-offico member that does not possess voting power. 

“It’s just like any other investigation, where you’re not going to move it forward unless you have evidence,” Roth said. “Those first few weeks were us asking questions and getting evidence.”

The job performance review that was turned in, mostly outlined grievances that had been taken against the WSGA cabinet. It outlined six different counts of misconduct, which included: Communication failures, lack of clarity in expectations, unequal treatment, violation of Student Code of Conduct Principles, failure to uphold Participation Standards as well as a lack of knowledge and misapplication of WSGA Governing Documents. 

The IA committee interviewed the eight members of cabinet. Seven of the eight  testified about their experiences with Coulter in relation to her performance as president. 

Some of their findings included: 

Ryan Durst, Vice President of WSGA, revealed that Coulter had repeatedly raised her voice at him. He also stated that Coulter had overstepped on multiple occasions and completed tasks that were assigned to him.

Kira Roth, Chief of Staff, stated that she also felt overstepped in aspects of her role. She was forced to mediate problems between the president and vice president. She also witnessed members of WSGA get treated differently, including, but not limited to, Nick Lloyd and Alex Timm. 

Caleb Newfer, Legislative Director, testified that the administration periodically demonstrated that they did not understand the WSGA bylaws and it fell on him to continually remedy misconceptions. He also stated that he was explicitly told to treat certain senators differently. He was specifically told to treat Lloyd differently when he tried to pass legislation for the creation of a sub-committee.

Lloyd attempted to create a sub-committee for the annual “Can Emporia” food drive that takes place on campus. 

Anybody in the student body can join a subcommittee. The intention of creating this was in hopes of being able to garner more support and campus reach by allowing more students to participate and help with the event. 

“I wanted to make sure that we weren’t solely focusing on ‘Can Emporia,’ but also opening ourselves up to other aspects of campus life,” Lloyd said. “I submitted legislation, and I got a call at around 5 p.m. on Monday saying, ‘It ain’t going on the agenda.’” 

On Monday nights, the Legislative Research Director, President, Vice President, Chief of Staff, Speaker and Parliamentarian all meet to discuss what will be on the agenda for the weekly Senate meeting. 

After further investigation, IA found that the reason the bill was killed before reaching the senate was due to budgeting concerns. 

Chairs of standing committees receive payment, but Lloyd was submitting legislation for a sub-committee. Chairs of sub-committees do not receive payment. 

“[The President] became very frustrated because this wasn’t laid out in the budget that they had established,” Roth said. “We all took turns trying to explain, ‘No, this is different, they don’t need to be paid. It doesn’t mess with your budget.’” 

Coulter became visibly upset and began to yell at those in the meeting. This caused the Legislative Research Director, Chief of Staff and now former Speaker to leave for a walk, out of frustration. 

“That was wholeheartedly just an abuse of power, of ending discussion without actually having a formal form of discussion happening,” Lloyd said. 

Lloyd has gone on to create the Open Floor Act, which streamlines the process for submitting bills. This amendment to the WSGA bylaws helps ensure that a situation like this doesn’t happen again. 

After IA heard testimonies from the cabinet, they had a meeting with Coulter to inform her of their findings. 

According to the Internal Affairs policy, if enough evidence has been collected, the committee must hold a Due Process Hearing. The purpose of the hearing is to weigh the evidence and determine if charges are appropriate. 

The committee made the decision to move forward with the hearing after speaking with Coulter. 

After being informed that she would be going through a Due Process Hearing, Coulter wrote an emotionally charged email to the IA Committee. 

In her letter, Coulter questioned the ethics of the committee. Stating several times that she was not made aware of the complaints against her behavior and she believes that she should have been informed about the claims before they moved forward with the hearing.

“I understand you have processes and methods for why you do what you do- but just because a process exists doesn’t mean it has to be followed blindly. Every IA situation is different and should be handled with empathy and understanding,” Coulter wrote. “This isn’t a violation of policy, a misuse of funds, or an ethical breach. This is a complaint about my behavior- something that should have started with an in-depth conversation, which I still haven’t gotten.”

Senator Autumn Stevens, member of IA, understood Coulter’s frustration with the investigation but also felt like the Due Process Hearing was the best option to move forward.

“The whole point of a Due Process Hearing is to give someone the chance to defend themselves.  As much as I understand where she’s coming from, I also don’t think that way,” Stevens said.  “Our committee as a whole, I think, should take accountability for the fact that it did take awhile to get through this job performance evaluation, and I know that something like this can weigh heavily on someone’s mental state.”

Lloyd believes that IA acted effectively even if they were not able to perform perfectly. 

“We were operating off of what our policy says. Our policy is public and it states that you get your testimony during the session and then a ruling is made,” Lloyd said. “That’s just how we hold ourselves accountable.”

In the Due Process Hearing, which was held on Nov. 13, President Coulter was found guilty of obstructing the passage of the bill to the Senate. 

“Yes, I acknowledge this, but I was not the only person in the room,” Coulter said. “I recognize that I was at fault, but I was not the only person at fault.”   

Coulter was found not guilty on the other two charges that were brought against her. 

The Parliamentarian, Keegan Sharp, was appointed by Coulter. Although he sits on the IA committee, he was given the option to remove himself due to a conflict of interest. Sharp is in a romantic relationship with Coulter. 

Sharp requested to stay in the committee citing concerns that Coulter would be aware of his schedule and she would realize he was not attending his weekly IA meetings. 

Uneasy that Coulter might become aware of the investigation before all of the evidence had been collected, Sharp chose to stay in the committee under the agreement that he would not inform Coulter of the investigation. He chose instead to abstain from commenting on any proceedings that involved Coulter but continued to uphold his duties on other IA matters. 

In an IA meeting, before any proceedings happen, the meeting is supposed to be called to order. As the vice chair of IA, Sharp takes the minutes for all of the meetings. During one meeting, before the Speaker arrived he spoke about the Job Performance Evaluation. 

“He engaged everyone in a conversation about next steps with the job performance evaluation, and was incredibly strongly worded and unkind, and very forceful in the fact that everything had gone wrong,” Roth said. 

A meeting has to be called to order for anything to be recorded in the meeting minutes. 

“He leaned back and crossed his arms, and he [said] ‘Somebody should call the meeting to order.’ This is something he is fully aware of,” Roth said. “His position as parliamentarian is to ensure that we are in adherence to Robert’s Rules of Order in the standing rules of the Senate. He knows for a 100% fact that the meeting is supposed to be called to order before any conversation happens.”

At the beginning of the Due Process Hearing, the committee voted for Sharp to be sequestered which he opposed.

“He acted intentionally that evening to prevent that information from being properly reported,” Roth said. “So it was our belief after witnessing that, that he had made deliberate actions that proved his bias.”

Coulter respected the decision to have Sharp removed from the hearing but believes that it only should have occurred if he made an action towards bias in the Due Process Hearing. 

“If you were in Keegan’s shoes, how would you react when your significant other is on trial? Would you stand up and advocate for them or would you sit there and put them on trial? I can proudly say that is my boyfriend who stood up for me,” Coulter said. “I’m not going to share names at this time, but I will let you know that there were just a lot of members, including someone who’s very close to me who had shared information to me, but also to other people who are not involved in this committee.” 

It is assumed that somebody, somewhere along the line shared privileged information about the investigation before it was public. As evidenced by posts made to Yik Yak, an anonymous social media app, discussing Coulter. 

“I think that it is also my duty to give others grace. It’s my first time as president. It’s their first time serving this committee,” Coulter said. “It was uncomfortable for them. It was uncomfortable for me. It was hard for them. It was hard for me. Knowing that your leader is under an investigation like that can really rattle people.” 

Timm, former Speaker of WSGA, resigned abruptly in October of this year on the same day as two other members of the organization. 

“I had some disagreements with leadership and I wish I had handled those better than what had occurred. When all is said and done they treated me with the best of intentions,” Timm said.

Lloyd commented on the situation, explaining that the communication of the administration likely contributed to the exit. 

“During September it did get stressful, in a sense that nobody really knew what was going on. Things were getting to people late, last minute meetings were being held behind closed doors,” Lloyd said. “I think that a lot of the not knowing what’s going on translated down into the senate. So much was being demanded and yet not much actually happened from it being demanded.” 

Timm feels as though the climate of the WSGA office is a matter of personal perception shaped through individual experiences. His own perception of the climate devolved negatively over time due to adverse experiences that occurred at the beginning of the semester. 

“The actions of leadership should always be scrutinized with reason and concern for the direction of others,” Timm said. “Leadership in WSGA and leadership in general, those are positions of trust and authority. To hold those roles, one must act accordingly with the values of the community that they’re representing.” 

By the end of the hearing, Coulter announced that she wanted to have a public forum to inform the student body about what had occurred; however she was later advised against it. 

“Upon discussion with some of my mentors in life, I was encouraged to not do that because part of moving on is moving on yourself. If you keep bringing things up it’s not gonna get better,” Coulter said. 

Coulter plans on using the next semester to move on from the hearing and using the second half of her time in office to focus on making small steps to build back trust. 

“Whenever someone can self-reflect and get better as a leader then they can do better at their job,” Coulter said. “I have obviously hit a road bump but at the same time I’m also pivoting my perspective and realizing things about myself that I hadn’t originally realized.” 

As the semester comes to an end, current Vice President, Ryan Durst will graduate. The new appointed Vice President, Lillian Clark will take over the reins in the Spring. 

Coulter is optimistic that next semester will go better. 

“Lillian and I have agreed on a motto of just doing the small things right and being as honest and transparent as we can,” Coulter said.

Roth shared her role as the Chief of Staff in the recent Wednesday meeting.

“The chief of staff is supposed to act as a bridge between cabinet and Senators, but some of that is turning that bridge sideways and acting as a wall between, the crazy things that can happen in cabinet versus the other things that happen in Senate,” Roth said.  “Part of what I wanted to do was to be able to stay there and be able to answer questions and be as positive as possible, and keep the office environment up and good, and make sure that everything continued to run as smoothly as possible.”

On Dec 3, Roth announced to senate that she was resigning, effective in January.

“This is not a decison that I have made lightly but I do know this is the decision best for my life, and my academic career, and personal life,” Roth said. “I am 100% confident in the senates’ ability to continue under the supervision of this administration and a new chief of staff.”

Edited by Stuti Khadka

Updated on Dec. 12, 4:08 p.m.