"I hereby resign from my post as sophomore class president, to cut off ... unfounded attacks, and to conform with the SGO resolution of May, 2000," read Sparrow's statement.
Upon request, the SGO was unable to provide documentation of the resolution, which was not printed in the updated Student Handbook due to an error by the Public Affairs department, according to Anna Wieckowski '03, who prepared the handbook. However, the minutes of the meeting in which the resolution was passed were confirmed by senators present at the vote.
Will Johnson '03, who served on the Senate when the resolution was passed, said he believes the resolution states that, "you can not serve in more than two positions at the same time."
Sparrow served in the three positions for several months while he was the interim treasurer and chair. However, he stated that he had previously been unaware of the resolution.
"The problem with this resolution is that it is not printed anywhere," said Sparrow. "How am I to be held responsible when I am ignorant of the facts because they are not available?"
During last Friday's meeting of the SGO constitutional review committee, several committee members and other students in attendance cited a recent allocation to Sparrow as an example of the SFC abusing its power. However, the SFC chair does not vote on discretionary allocations and did not take part in the vote in question.
"An e-board member shouldn't be holding any other position because of the potential for a conflict of interest occurring," said Mike Flood '03, who challenged Sparrow in the election for treasurer and lost.
Sparrow was allocated $3,000 in discretionary funds while he was serving as interim chair.
"I really think [the allocation] was wrong," said Eric Osborne '04. "It all comes to one thing: how do we prevent against abuses like this by the SFC?"
Sparrow was the only class president to receive SFC funds above the standard $1,000 allocation. The money will go towards the purchase of sweatpants for the sophomore class.
"There was no conflict of interest ... that tainted the allocation of funds to the class of 2004," said Sparrow. "It has never been my goal to amass as much power as possible ... I am now taking the role of SFC chair and I have assured that my obligations as class president will be met and I am ready and eager to proceed from here."
Sparrow's full statement is available at www.amherst.edu/~astudent.