BRIEF: Student calls for public apology from SGA president

Citing improper social media usage by current Student Government Association (SGA) President Mohamed AbdelGilil, biology major Natalia Marfil called for a public apology at the Aug. 6 SGA meeting. Marfil referenced AbdelGilil’s June 28, July 16 and Aug. 3 posts made on social media during the open forum portion of the meeting.

In response, AbdelGilil made a statement apologizing for his posts, which he said hurt members of the LGBTQ+ community. AbdelGilil said he sought guidance from University of Houston-Clear Lake President Ira K. Blake and would be meeting with Vice President of Student Affairs Aaron Hart to address how to move forward and be more inclusive of the LGBTQ+ community.

Listen to AbdelGilil’s full statement below. A transcript is available at the bottom of this post.

“The errors I’ve made have shaped me into who I am today,” AbdelGili said. “What happened, happened. I don’t have an excuse.”

AbdelGilil said he plans to reach out to members of UHCL’s LGBTQ+ community in order to learn about their struggles and needs.

Marfil followed up by questioning why the posts had yet to be removed, to which AbdelGilil said he left them up in order to avoid questions of transparency, but that he is willing to remove them.

The June 28 post has since been deleted. The July 16 post referenced is a private post.

Prior to the SGA meeting, Marfil and other students started an online petition calling for the removal of AbdelGilil as SGA president. The petition states that AbdelGili has “created and continues to create a hostile environment for a large portion of the student body” and demands immediate action from Patrick Cardenas, interim director of the Office of Student Involvement and Leadership.

The next SGA meeting will be held Aug. 27 at 11:30 a.m. in the SSCB Lecture Hall. The meetings are open to all students and include scheduled open forum time for students to address concerns to the SGA.

Transcript of public apology from Mohamed AbdelGilil during the Aug. 7 SGA meeting open forum:

NATALIA MARFIL: On Aug. 3, you referenced two of your Facebook posts from June 28 and July 16 in a Facebook statement where you said, quote, “I know what it feels to be discriminated against. It’s not a good feeling, yet I did just that. I shared a couple of posts that were not well received at all. I didn’t know that what I said deeply affected people.” End quote. My first question is, are you planning to make a public apology in regards to these posts?

MOHAMED ABDELGILIL: Yeah, so, regarding that, and I know a lot of you here are also interested in my misbehavior. So, I have a statement, and this is to everyone here, feel free to quote me, use it wherever you like, but this is sincerely from my heart. And, to be honest with you, I did have something prepared, but I just wanted to go with my gut, kind of, and just wrote something out of my heart, because we can say the words all day long, but it’s only the words that come from the heart really matter.

I know this is an educational institution, and our purpose here is to learn about ourselves and to learn about one another, to explore, improve, professionally develop. It’s just an ongoing process. But at the end of the day, yes I am the SGA president, but at the same time, I am also another human being who is flawed. I am sure that I will continue making these errors and face these challenges that might have consequences. But, I know one thing. With all these errors and mistakes and things that I did which were totally unacceptable, they shaped me to who I am today, to where I am right now. Without me making these mistakes or errors in the past, I wouldn’t be here right not standing in front of you. I wouldn’t have any of these amazing opportunities that this institution and that the student body gave me.

I definitely apologize for what I did, because it was just totally unacceptable. I don’t know why I said that. Rereading it after realizing that it hurt some of you, or a majority of you, I just reflected on it and I was like, “Why did I do this? This isn’t what I really wanted to say.”

What happened happened, I can’t have an excuse for this. I am sorry to anyone who is deeply affected by this and troubled by this. The only way moving forward. Some of you don’t know this, but I actually do have an appointment with Dr. Hart at 1:30 after this meeting to discuss my actions and how to move forward. My initial plan was after contacting Dr. Hart, and getting the advice from Dr. Blake, was to come and reach out to the LGBTQIA community and sit and have a face to face discussion. We can say all we want online, but at the end of the day, it’s those conversations that we bring up to learn about the things that we thought otherwise, we thought differently about, or thought wrong about. And, that’s the only way to correct all these.

So, I apologize on behalf of myself. I put my team through so much, and they didn’t deserve to take these bullets because of my actions. But, I am sorry, and I swear this is out of my heart, and I really mean every single thing.

I know a lot of people want to see action overnight, but I did with consultation from Dr. Blake and such, um… Two days ago is when I emailed Dr. Hart and scheduled this appointment, and such. I just wanted to keep it on the low to continue on growing, to continue taking advice from these amazing leaders here on campus, and to just learn and to grow through what I did.

So, once again, I am sorry to you, and I am sorry to everyone from the LGBTQIA community. And, I am willing to, once I finish this meeting with Dr. Hart, today, God willing, to sit with you and talk with you about the issues that you go through and the LGBTQIA community goes through, to fix this.

You can’t be against someone, that’s just not a thing. Yes, we all have our own beliefs and opinions and such, but at the end of the day, you can’t be against a person. At the end of the day, what matters is the human soul. That’s what brings us all together, that’s why each and every one of us here is at this institution, we’re trying to learn, we’re trying to get a degree, we’re trying to progress in life. That’s just the only way to go through it. It’s just a learning curve. And that’s the whole point of going to, essentially, college, to develop that critical thinking, that compassion. And, I’m running out of words.

Honestly, no matter what I say, it can’t fix what I’ve done. But, again, only my actions will be able to do so. And, once again, I am sorry.