EDITOR’S NOTE: Because Dillon Schade was critical of Pipe Dream’s news coverage of the scandal, the news editor did not participate in this editorial so as to avoid a conflict of interest.

Student Association President Dillon Schade gave a resignation speech to Student Congress on Monday night. In it, he was defiant, and fought back against those who called for him to step down.

It was a far cry from the composed, respectful email that he sent out to the student body on Friday announcing his intentions to resign. In that email, Schade wrote that it was “time for me to step down so as to not inhibit the further advancement of this institution.”

On Monday, however, he said that it was “in my personal best interest to [resign]” because of the job that he has waiting for him after graduation. And that’s OK. We are all college students who want to be employed after we leave Binghamton. What was disappointing was the lack of remorse in his speech.

Schade started by announcing that he was going to read his “unbiased timeline” of the events from the past week that ultimately led to his resignation. Schade’s definition of “unbiased,” however, is unclear, as he promptly proceeded to call the Black Student Union’s letter asking for his resignation “slanderous.”

He played the victim, explaining how BSU’s letter had spread via Facebook, and that he had been put in a position where he had no choice but to resign.

Pipe Dream was also a target, as Schade alleged that its news coverage did not give him the opportunity to defend himself.

Whether or not Shade is guilty of posting the N-word on his Tinder profile is not yet known — he claims that he is the victim of a prank. But that his farewell address did not feature any sort of apology to the students who lost faith in him because of the offensive language, or that he did not broach the topic of race that he spoke about at length in his letter to campus was unfortunate.

In the end, Schade missed the point with his last public address. He could, and should, have taken the opportunity to tell the remaining SA E-board, as well as the entirety of BU’s Student Congress, to learn from the events that forced him from office and urged them to push for positive change throughout the remainder of the year. Instead, he used his speech as a platform to fight back on his way out.

Schade’s final retaliation gave an unseemly end to an otherwise effective and influential presidency.