Last Thursday, the chair of the Student Association Congress’ Elections and Judiciary Committee told Pipe Dream that Irene Cui, who was one of two candidates running for student representative on the University Council, had been removed from the upcoming election’s ballot.

Now, after filing a grievance last night around 11:30 p.m., Cui, a sophomore majoring in economics, will be allowed to participate in tonight’s separately held SA and Graduate Student Organization candidate debates.

The dispute will be adjudicated by the Joint Grievance Board, which is composed of six members elected by the SA’s Judicial Board, the GSO’s chief judicial officer and two members elected by the GSO Senate.

“While this grievance is pending, obviously I am a candidate for BU Council representative,” Cui told Pipe Dream Thursday afternoon. “I will still be doing my campaigning until after the decision [of] the Joint Grievance Board will end up deciding whether or not I am eligible to run.”

It is currently unclear the timeline on which the grievance will be adjudicated. SA and GSO administrators have not publicly shared plans to delay the election. Cui said she did not file the grievance until last night because she had been writing it over the past few days.

As of Thursday afternoon, Cui’s candidate profile, which had been removed as of last week, is active on the SA’s website.

Mackenzie Cooper, the incumbent council representative running for reelection and a junior majoring in philosophy, politics and law, had no comment.

Ademola Adedoyin, the GSO’s chief elections officer and a Ph.D. student studying industrial and systems engineering, told Pipe Dream on Thursday morning that the SA’s Judicial Board and GSO’s Judicial Committee chairs had confirmed receipt of Cui’s grievance and that she would be restored as a candidate temporarily until “a final decision is made.”

Cui’s previous disqualification was because of a clause in one of the SA’s governing documents, the Management Policies, that says that the SA Congress’ parliamentarian “shall sign an agreement stating that they are ineligible to run in a campus-wide election for the remainder of that academic year.”

Cui resigned as parliamentarian on Feb. 12, around two weeks before she initially announced her run for council representative. She had said that removing her for this reason would constitute a breach of precedent, as a previous parliamentarian was allowed to resign and run in a campuswide election.

Kenny Tran, the SA’s Elections Committee chair and a senior majoring in biology, previously told Pipe Dream that the issue was “worth investigating” during this year’s election but that the issue was not “expressed in the past.”

Cui alleged that the failure of the Joint Elections Committee, made up of four SA representatives and three GSO representatives, to hold a formal hearing, among other violations of due process, rendered the vote to remove her from the ballot invalid.

Tran previously told Pipe Dream on March 18 that Cui was recognized not as a candidate but rather as a nominee by the GSO. Adedoyin told Pipe Dream that because Cui was not recognized as a candidate, the Joint Elections Committee could not hold a hearing.

In an interview with Pipe Dream, Adedoyin added that the SA Congress could have voted on an addendum to clarify the aforementioned clause in the Management Policies, because it does not currently address procedure if a parliamentarian resigns.

On March 18, Kristina Donders, the speaker of Congress and a junior double-majoring in mathematics and political science, told Pipe Dream that, “As Speaker, I have no formal role in the elections process.”

“I’m able to provide advice on how things could be conducted, however, these decisions are ultimately up to the Elections Committee,” she wrote.

The campuswide election to determine next year’s SA E-Board and University Council representative is to be held on March 27, with a candidate debate tonight.

The University Council representative, elected each spring, represents undergraduate and graduate students on a 10-member body that oversees certain operations. Its nine other members are appointed by the governor of New York.

The election is overseen by the SA and the Graduate Student Organization. The SA Congress is scheduled to certify the election’s results at a meeting on April 4.