BACKGROUND: In October, View reported on efforts...

BACKGROUND: In October, View reported on efforts to recall University of Kansas’s first black student body president, Darren Fulcher. In August it was revealed that Fulcher had struck his girlfriend in a domestic dispute in February and entered into an agreement with the local prosecutor to perform community service and pay for her dental care. The Student Senate voted Sept. 11 to remove him from office, but Fulcher appealed to the university’s Judicial Board, arguing that the Student Senate lacked a bylaw provision to remove him and that he had not received due process.

UPDATE: The Judicial Board has ratified Fulcher’s removal and replaced him with former Student Senate Vice President Alan Lowden, who is white. The university administration accepted the five-member panel’s ruling. The decision did not immediately heal the divisions that the Fulcher controversy opened between white and black and male and female students on the KU campus. About 60 supporters of Fulcher staged a rally Dec. 9 to denounce his ouster. Fulcher can appeal the Judicial Board’s decision within 30 class days.