Rank and File Caucus proposes amendment to MIT Graduate Student Union constitution
The amendment requires a general membership vote for the union’s external partisan political collaborations
In April 2025, the Rank and File Caucus launched a petition calling for an amendment to the MIT Graduate Student Union (GSU) constitution that requires all external partisan political collaborations to be approved by a general membership vote. The caucus initiated this petition to increase member input and buy-in on partisan collaborations before finalizing decisions, particularly for groups that “federal officials have targeted for their alleged associations with foreign governments.”
The Rank and File Caucus is a graduate student group that was founded in Fall 2023 to encourage participation in the GSU by increasing voting member turnout and general membership meeting attendance. “The more people who are engaged in the activity, the more successful our organizing efforts are, and the more successful our political engagements are,” caucus member Brice Green G said.
In 2025, the GSU appeared to endorse two rallies sponsored by the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), drawing criticism from some union members as the decision did not involve a general member vote. Instead, the Local Executive Board (LEB), which consists of five Officers and eight Area Chief Stewards, endorsed the events and collaborations via an internal majority vote. The Rank and File caucus members confirmed this event in an interview with The Tech. According to its website, the PSL believes that socialism is the “only solution” to ending capitalism. The political party supports the pro-Palestinian movement and advocates for causes such as universal healthcare and a living wage.
In a statement to The Tech, MIT GSU President Lauren Chua G stated that the union “has not endorsed any one group or individual,” and that the proposed amendment was decided by democratic participation in the general membership meetings. “We respect the rights of all members to raise these questions and shape the union's direction through democratic structures,” Chua wrote, stressing the importance of general member engagement in the union.
Furthermore, Chua noted that the GSU formed a working group on immigrant and international worker’s rights in response to the increased presence of ICE. Xin Hui Yong G, an international student, believes that the proposed amendment is important for protecting international students. They stated that international students have been worried about participating in certain rallies due to the risks associated with political speech in the current political climate. In March 2025, international students Mahmoud Khalil and Mohsen Mahdawi were detained by ICE because of their involvement with pro-Palestinian protests.
“Putting each other at risk without any kind of common ground is a recipe for eroding the kind of sense of safety and trust that’s required for political autonomy as a community,” Yong wrote. They maintain that the proposed amendment would not have prevented the union from cooperating with non-partisan organizations such as TransMIT and the LUCE Immigrant Justice Network, as the proposal mainly focuses on external partisan groups.
From April to May 2025, the caucus collected over 120 signatures. However, it needed 200 to bring the amendment to the floor of a general membership meeting. Before the May meeting, some members expressed concern that the amendment’s language regarding partisan collaboration was too general and could interfere with the caucus’s political work in areas such as pro-Palestinian advocacy. As a result, the caucus incorporated this feedback when revising the amendment.
The caucus originally did not plan to bring the amendment to the floor for the May general membership meeting, intending to recollect signatures for the revised amendment. However, union members not in favor of the original amendment sent an email requesting the LEB vote on the amendment to bring it to the floor. The LEB ultimately voted against the original amendment. “All this voting discussion is not something we even expected, because we weren’t even pushing for this to be voted on,” Green clarified. “The fact that this [amendment] became big led people to misunderstand who we are.”
Caucus member Emma Batson G added that the amendment was not intended to stop rallies or end partisan collaborations — rather, from Batson’s perspective, the purpose of the amendment was to increase general member engagement related to deciding the union’s partisan collaborations. “If the general membership of the union said we want to continue to have these partisan collaborations, then I would be fine with it,” Batson said. “But I just felt that people weren’t being given that opportunity.”
MIT GSU At-Large Delegate Olivier Ng’weno Kigotho G acknowledged that requiring a general membership vote for partisan collaborations “could slow things down.” However, Ng’weno Kigotho believes that a slower but larger buy-in is a more effective solution for political work such as winning a union contract. “If you get people together, have them discuss and buy in and create a political plan together, then all the members have ownership of the political program going forward,” Ng’weno Kigotho said.
The caucus attempted to bring the updated amendment to the floor for the June general membership meeting but ultimately could not do so. Changes made to the amendment included clarifications on the definition of a partisan political organization and examples of partisan collaborations. Batson attributes the outcome partly to a failure to share the updated amendment with general members before the meeting. “There just weren’t really communication channels that allowed us to do that, so that was disappointing,” Batson stated.
Despite this result, Green considered the meeting’s significant increase in member turnout a “big win for having a participatory union with healthy democratic input.” Over 120 members were present in-person, while others attended via Zoom. Prior to the amendment, the average member attendance for general membership meetings was around 40 people.
Moving forward, the caucus’s primary goal is to win a strong contract for 2026, a process that requires a super-majority of members in the bargaining survey. Besides achieving a successful bargaining survey, Ng’weno Kigotho stated that the GSU plans to create issue-specific working groups, such as those for trans workers and international workers, as these populations have been under significant scrutiny by the Trump administration. Furthermore, the GSU plans to restart former working groups such as the anti-racism working group that ran from 2020 to 2021.
“In some ways, it’s just getting back to our roots, trying to do this kind of work again,” Batson said.