Student Government Association dispute goes public as Justice Horn breaks non-disparagement agreement

  A non-disparagement agreement (NDA) between the current SGA executive board and the previous SGA president was broken on Saturday as Justice Horn ‘broke his silence’ via Instagram.

  Horn resigned as SGA president on Oct. 17 of last year and cited his campaign for Jackson County office as the reason.

  “I chose not to speak earlier because I didn’t want to influence the SGA election but now that it’s over, I believe it’s important to be transparent,” Horn wrote in the post. “I was required to sign a non-disparagement agreement to prevent me from speaking about what happened.”

  Horn, who served as the 87th and 94th SGA presidents, described growing tensions within his administration last year. 

  “I had to choose to stay and fight a prolonged internal battle, or step away to prevent SGA from being consumed by conflict. I chose to step away—for the good of the organization and the students.”

SGA leaders dispute account

  Multiple SGA leaders, including members of Horn’s past administration, strongly pushed back on his statement, arguing that his resignation came amid widespread concerns about his leadership.

  Emily Balentine, SGA’s current speaker of the house who also served on Horn’s executive board, said issues had been consistently brought up regarding Horn’s administration.

  “You were asked a plethora of times to work with your team instead of doing everything by yourself without approval,” said Balentine in a post responding to Horn.

  Andrew Tracey, the current SGA president, said Horn would frequently post on social media without approval from other SGA members, oftentimes posting misinformation. 

  “We actually had to make an executive board rule that social media posting was prohibited without express permission from anyone,” said Tracey. “The executive board couldn’t post unless there was a majority vote that you could, because of Justice.”

  Balentine also disputed Horn’s characterization of his departure. 

  “I’m very disappointed that you are choosing to disparage the SGA name, the team that tried to work with you, and that you’re saying you were forced out when you voluntarily left prior to the impeachment,” said Balentine.

Impeachment effort and NDA details 

  Tracey confirmed that an impeachment had been underway prior to Horn’s resignation.

  “President Horn made unscrupulous and dishonest claims about his own campaign and towards his political opponents, which is a violation of the SGA Constitution, Core Standards, and is additionally grounds for impeachment based on dishonesty,” the impeachment document said. 

  Tracey said Horn agreed to step down in exchange for halting further impeachment proceedings and limiting discussion of the matter, agreeing to this in the NDA.  

  “He agreed to not go through with the impeachment trial and we would not discuss this.” 

    Tracey also cited concerns about Horn’s performance in office.

  “He often cancelled executive board meetings or showed up to meetings unprepared,” Tracey said. “He wasn’t really performing the duties of president.”

    Balentine also chimed in on Horn’s questionable leadership. 

  “He kept lying, not following through, and running his position more like a monarchy than a democracy,” Balentine said in a statement to Roo News. “As someone who was on your executive board, my hope is you stop spinning lies,” she said directly to Horn. 

  Horn is currently running for Jackson County Executive, and is pursuing his second masters at UMKC. 

  When reached by Roo News, Horn had no further comment.

For clarification purposes, non-disparagement agreements (NDAs) prohibit making negative or damaging statements about a company’s reputation, while non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) restrict sharing confidential business information, trade secrets or proprietary data.