Student Association Vice President Janet Rodriguez condemned NIU’s attempt to stop her from suspending the Campus Activities Board for not complying with an injunction.

Rodriguez said Rick Clark, director of University Programming and Activities, cannot refuse to recognize Rodriguez’s attempt to freeze CAB.

“Rick [Clark] and members of UP&A do not have the authority to veto or ‘disallow’ the decisions of either organization unless there are university policies being violated,” Rodriguez said in a statement Thursday. “He has clearly overstepped his boundaries and has created an atmosphere that is hostile and intimating [sic] for both the incoming CAB executives and the SA.”

Clark said he can decide whether NIU will recognize the decision.

“This is a bigger situation than what they’re viewing,” Clark said. “I’m looking out for 25,000 students.”

CAB has been working on activities for Homecoming and New Student Welcome Days, which Clark said are vital to introducing students to the campus.

The vice president can suspend an organization only after a procedure outlined in the SA constitution is followed, which Rodriguez did not do, Clark said.

“I asked her to just follow the constitution,” Clark said.

The constitution requires that the issue first be looked at from within the organization and then before a committee.

In her statement, Rodriguez said Clark and advisers Lesley Clemens and Mary Tosch have stepped into student business where they don’t belong.

“They have enforced policies that do not exist, claimed authority they do not have, made decisions for use of student fees without the consent of the new officers, denied them the right to appoint their own staff [and] refused to include the new officers on pending contracts that would effect [sic] their term,” Rodriguez said.

Clark said Tosch and Clemens are professionals able to separate their personal feelings from their professional lives.

“I’m not going to get into a war of words with [Rodriguez],” Clark said.

Rodriguez ordered CAB suspended after it failed to adhere to SA Supreme Court Justice Eric Johnson’s injunction that froze all its activity in May. Clark never recognized that injunction.

Rodriguez said the injunction, which expired Thursday, was still in effect.

CAB continues to operate as normal, Clark said. Thursday was the first day of the new executives’ term.

The incoming executives had accused the former CAB leaders of refusing to hand over documents related to the organization, changing the constitution, appointing students to positions they should not have, “tying the hands” of new executives and of making “childish insults.”