A number of allegations have emerged calling into question Cornelius Roemer’s leadership of the Trinity College Students’ Union (TCSU). Roemer was the TCSU President between 2015 and 2016, ending his term on 29 January, and is currently running for the position of Cambridge University Students’ Union President.

Documents seen by Varsity reveal a lack of confidence in Roemer’s presidency among members of his committee. It has emerged that in Michaelmas term the committee considered writing a letter questioning his continuing suitability for the role of President. At the point of composition, a document consisting of 15 individual statements from each of the committee’s elected officials accused Roemer of an abrasive leadership style, alienating a number of officers, and isolating the TCSU from senior college officials.

However, the committee later decided against moving forward with this plan and the 15 individual statements were not compiled into an official letter. Screenshots seen exclusively by Varsity reveal that the committee decided to abandon the letter in a group thread on Facebook. One member commented, “I really don’t think we should go ahead with this. Not because he’s necessarily doing a better job than before (which I don’t think he is), but because I dislike the alternative to him being pres.” The writer continued: “I fully supported going ahead with concerted organised action asking him to step down, but in my opinion this window has long closed. Now all we would achieve is severely damaging our reputation and capacity as committee […]”. Another contributor wrote that “I believe Cornelius is doing better judging from the last committee meeting. Our role now is to keep advising him in order to keep it that way.”

Others on the committee expressed reservations: “I find it slightly concerning that the people who were affected the most haven’t said for it to stop… It’s easy for people to forget when people feel attacked when time passes if their [sic] not directly affected.” Ultimately, however, it was concluded that “this chat room” is “redundant” and “any further discussion can be made in the committee group so that we can also include Cornelius.”

The contents of this unsent document have now been revealed to Varsity through an anonymous source. Speaking about their motivations, the source told Varsity: “The position of CUSU President is an important one: a role in its very nature puts the office holder as the face of the university itself, and its student body. I am uncomfortable with the notion of ‘leaking’ information and I am very sorry it has come to this, but I think it is important that people are aware of what Cornelius was like as TCSU President. Many people have legitimate criticisms of the way they were treated by him during his time on the committee, and in some cases he made the roles which we took - not for pay, or personal gain - not only difficult but also caused unhappiness. I do not think it was right to allow him to run for CUSU President citing his time at the TCSU without people knowing what happened on his committee.”

A number of contributors did, however, preface their remarks by recognising Roemer’s commitment to the student body. One member wrote: “I appreciate your enthusiasm for and commitment to the TCSU.” Another student commented: “I have a lot of respect for the effort you’ve put in, and I feel like you have achieved a lot during your presidency”. In all, only four of the 15 statements did not include some explicit reference to positive aspects of Roemer’s presidency. One member even indicated that while they were “worried” by “the amount of personal animus against you”, “it is not something I feel myself.”

However, the majority of the statements do indicate that it was an increasingly negative atmosphere within the TCSU which prompted the committee to act. One officer wrote that “overbearing” leadership had created “an environment [which] is untenable, and… something needs to be done to address these issues”, while another member said the “[u]ndermining of officers during and outside of meetings has created a hostile work environment.” Others claimed they had not directly experienced negative behaviour from Roemer, but were “very concerned by some of the things that have been told to us” as “[g]oodwill is very important to the smooth functioning of a committee.”

Examples of the behaviour in question cited in the statements include not listening to committee members’ opinions, threatening two officers with by-elections and damaging the TCSU’s relationship with senior college officials.

One officer described an instance where they sent “a long facebook [sic] message, which I’d put a lot of thought into, expressing just how misguided I thought your stance was [in handling a particular TCSU issue]. Rather than engaging with my arguments, you sent me a one line response, subsequently telling me that I shouldn’t contact you on facebook [sic]”. They cited this experience as “representative of a general inability to respect committee members and their opinions.”

It was additionally suggested that “committee meetings have been inefficient as the President has not engaged or listened to the discussion at hand”. One example of this described by two of the committee members occurred during a discussion of the consent workshops that were planned to take place during Trinity’s Freshers’ Week. “I was particularly frustrated by your insistence on connecting the consent workshops with the legal aspects of sexual assault. Given that the whole committee… disagreed with you on what was essentially a moral question, I thought it slightly appalling that you refused to acknowledge the fallibility of your own judgement”, wrote one officer. Another agreed, describing how they took offence to “your suggestion of changing the sexual consent workshops to ‘How to avoid jail’.”

Furthermore, the statements suggest that at two separate points Roemer raised the possibility of removing committee members through by-elections. The first complained that you “threaten[ed] to hold a by-election for my position – which you do not even have the right to do”. The second alleges that they were threatened with a by-election when unable to attend a TCSU meeting due to a scheduled lecture. They summarised the response they received from Roemer as: “I’m sorry but that’s not a valid excuse. If you don’t go we can just as well do by-elections. If you’re not committed, I’m sure others are. There are plenty of people who would want to do your job.”

Beyond the atmosphere within the committee, a number of officers also cited Roemer’s fraught relationship with college officials as a motivation for considering a formal letter. The former TCSU Secretary writes: “One of the major issues I have experienced is the confrontational way in which you approach the Liaison Committee meetings, which I believe is seriously damaging the relationship between TCSU and senior College staff”. The Liaison Committee is a bi-termly meeting between the President, Vice-President and Secretary of the TCSU and senior members of Trinity College.

This is a concern apparently shared by the majority of committee members. One writes that “Being rude and pushy to senior members of the college is absolutely unacceptable”. It was also observed that “Other members of college staff, such as the catering department, have expressed that they no longer wish to help the TCSU due to receiving rude correspondence”. This is corroborated by one officer’s complaint that “I felt uncomfortable having been asked to treat caterers with an ‘iron fist’.”

Varsity reported last term that the TCSU faced controversy when disagreement broke out in college over a scheduled women’s breakfast celebrating 40 years since women were first admitted to the college. At the time, the Women’s Officer told Varsity that “I am confused and saddened at the aggressive responses [from within the college].”

Varsity can confirm, however, that the documents questioning Roemer’s presidency had been composed prior to this event. Speaking to Varsity, the then Women’s Officer has said that while “[t]hese events happened after the letter was written… [his handling of the events] furthered my lack of confidence in Cornelius.”

She continued: “I find it uncomfortable that Cornelius may be in a position of representing an entire university when I was completely misrepresented by him to the college and to the press after a celebration of 40 years of women being admitted into college, an event organised by the heads of college, which Cornelius was not involved in (because of my more relevant role and better rapport with the organisers).”

The statements seen by Varsity therefore reveal discontent in the TCSU committee prior to the disagreement arising from the planned women’s breakfast. It was compiled by all members of the committee except Roemer, who did not in the end receive a letter.

When asked by Varsity about why a formal letter was not compiled, the former Access Officer gave the following statement: “In my opinion, no further action was taken because it was generally agreed that it would cause a lot of disruption to the function of the TCSU. As Access Officer, I didn’t want committee infighting to prevent me, or any other officer from doing the job we had been elected to do. The TCSU is there to serve the students of Trinity, and I felt that moving forward with the letter would have only caused more divisions, tension and made us less able to fulfil our responsibilities. However, as the letter shows, there were significant problems with Cornelius’s management of the committee, which led to an extremely unpleasant working environment for several officers. I think our specific complaints about him as President of our JCR are relevant to the CUSU elections, particularly if he intends to cite his time as President of TCSU as experience in his campaign.”

Roemer declined Varsity’s request for comment. His campaign for the position of CUSU President began yesterday morning when the official CUSU campaigning period opened at 8am.

Manifestos for all candidates, as well as further information about elections and voting, have now been released. Details can be found online through the elections section of CUSU’s website.