The thoughts in this article are my own, shared in a personal capacity, and don’t represent the views of DU’s Undergraduate Student Government.
Most people don’t spend much time thinking about DU’s Undergraduate Student Government (USG), and honestly, I get it. It’s easy to dismiss as shallow or performative. And sometimes, it is.
But over the past three years on USG’s Court, including three terms as Justice Primus — USG’s alternative for Chief Justice — I’ve had a front-row seat to how conflict works in campus institutions. I’ve witnessed the heated arguments, hard conversations and the decisions where no one walks away happy.
I’ve been threatened with legal action, had people berate me for a Court ruling and dealt with cases where someone threatened to go to the media if we didn’t rule their way. What I learned changed how I think about disagreement, justice and what it takes to build a community that can handle front and center issues.
On the Court, which handles everything from student government election disputes to funding challenges and violations of student organization procedures, we dealt with cases where both sides were convinced they’d been wronged. People came in hurt, frustrated and often furious at each other, us and the system.
Our real work was deciding what was at the heart of the issue, not who was right, wrong, or what should happen. What really drove this conflict? What was the intention? What was the impact? And oftentimes, we had to slow down, usually more than either party would’ve liked, to answer these questions.
As one could probably imagine, campus conflict is often much more about feelings than it is about policy. It’s about people feeling unheard, disrespected and dismissed. The same bylaws can feel unfair or fair, not because of what they say, but because of how they are enforced and whether people feel included in the process.
I enforced rules I didn’t always agree with, not because it was easy or because I didn’t question them, but because justice has to mean something beyond who shouts the loudest. It has to be rooted in consistency and process. There is a difference between critiquing the system and undermining it at the moment. I learned that upholding justice sometimes meant honoring the process now so we could improve it tomorrow.
And as much as everyone wants immediate resolutions, I’ve seen how impatience can worsen a bad situation. “This is an emergency, we need to act faster.” It’s understandable, I’ve felt that impulse too. But acting on urgency and ignoring the process rarely ends well. Real emergencies, especially in student government, are rare. Most of the time, what feels like an emergency is someone’s frustration reaching a breaking point.
If there’s one thing I keep returning to, it’s that staying in those tough conversations matters. It’s tempting to walk away when things get uncomfortable or to let someone else take the heat. Showing up, listening, asking better questions and holding the process steady when emotions run high — that’s what helps.
None of this is glamorous. It’s rarely visible. And it’s often thankless. But it matters. Because conflict isn’t going away on our campus, and how we handle it, whether in student government, group projects, or everyday disagreements, shapes what kind of community we are.
