Draft Amina Coalition

### Affiliation(s)

* McCormick-St. Anthony's Inter-School Student Council Student Outreach Committee
* McCormick School
	+ McCormick School Gender, Sexuality and Romantic Minorities Union
	+ McCormick School Low Income Students’ Association
	+ McCormick School Racial and Ethnic Minorities Coalition
	+ McCormick School Religious Minorities Association
* St. Anthony's School
	+ St. Anthony's School Gay-Straight Alliance
	+ St. Anthony's School Low Income Students’ Association
	+ St. Anthony's School Racial Minorities Group
	+ St. Anthony's School Religious Minorities Association

### Status

Inactive

The **Draft Amina Coalition** is a successful movement of students and various student organisations at McCormick School and St. Anthony's School to pressure then-McCormick-St. Anthony's Inter-School Student Council President-elect Irene Roussopoulos to appoint Amina Malik as Treasurer of the ISSC. Amina's appointment as ISSC Treasurer was supported by several key groups that won Irene her election, including LGBTQ+ students, racial and ethnic minorities, religious minorities and, most significantly, low-income students.

## History

In her freshman year of high school, Amina Malik served as a member of several extracurricular groups at McCormick School, including McCormick's Low Income Students’ Association and its Muslim Student Union. In addition, she also served on the McCormick School Student Council's Student Outreach Committee. She spent much of her time on the council advocating on behalf of low-income students, as well as religious and racial minorities.

This advocacy caught the attention of several Student Council members, including Harmony Stone, who was on the Student Outreach Committee with Amina. Harmony reached out to her close friend Simone Howard, Communications Manager for the McCormick School Gender, Sexuality and Romantic Minorities Union, and agreed to work together to get Amina a spot as Treasurer of the McCormick School Student Council in the case that Irene Roussopoulos's bid for Student Council President were successful. Harmony and Simone relied on building up support from a variety of student organizations at both McCormick School and St. Anthony's School known to be friendly to Irene's campaign, including both schools' LGBTQ+, religious minority, and racial and ethnic minority groups. Crucially, the girls focused most of their efforts on gaining the support of both McCormick and St. Anthony's Low-Income Students' Associations. Harmony also persuaded Student Outreach Chair, Ed Woodard, and Extracurricular Co-Chair for the Arts, Beatrice Reid, to support Amina's potential appointment.

Amina originally did not want to take up the role of ISSC Treasurer. However, after receiving personal encouragement from Ed, she said in a public statement to *The Daily Saints* that "if I was offered the role, I would accept it."

Under pressure to form a coalition student government with Carnegie but also aiming to build a moderate government, Irene initially did not want to give Amina the Treasurer position. During her presidency, Irene aimed to have McCormick funding go to school-wide events and scholarship and financial aid increases, but suspected that if Amina would focus funding on interests groups like racial and religious minorities if she became Treasurer. Jess Mitchell, campaign advisor to Irene who would go on to serve as Secretary, wanted Amina even less, calling her "unnecessary". Irene's first choice for Treasurer was Katie Neal, who was at that time serving on the Student Council as the Junior Class Representative.

However, when Ed announced his and the Student Outreach Committee's support for Amina's appointment as Treasurer and Beatrice followed up the next day with an endorsement on behalf of herself and the Extracurricular Subcommittee for the Arts, Irene realized she needed to pick Amina as her Treasurer for fear of infighting between her Student Council appointees and the committee chairs. As a result, Irene entered talks with Amina, Jess, Ed, Beatrice and Chloe Dean, the then Vice President-elect. On the second-to-last-day of the 2017–2018 academic year, Irene officially appointed Amina as Treasurer and Katie as Director of Communications.

## Known participants

### Organizations and groups

* McCormick-St. Anthony's Inter-School Student Council Extracurricular Subcommittee for the Arts
* McCormick-St. Anthony's Inter-School Student Council Student Outreach Committee

#### McCormick School

* McCormick School Gender, Sexuality and Romantic Minorities Union
* McCormick School Low Income Students’ Association
* McCormick School Racial and Ethnic Minorities Coalition
* McCormick School Religious Minorities Association

#### St. Anthony's School

* St. Anthony's School Gay-Straight Alliance

* St. Anthony's School Low Income Students’ Association
* St. Anthony's School Racial Minorities Group
* St. Anthony's School Religious Minorities Association

### People

* Simone Howard
* Beatrice Reid
* Harmony Stone
* Ed Woodard