First-year Senator Resigns During His Impeachment Trial

Association of Amherst Students (AAS) Senator Oscar Gosling ’27 resigned during the opening statement of his impeachment trial on Wednesday before a full audience in the Cole Assembly Room. There will be a special election to fill his seat.

The impeachment trial came after the AAS approved an Oct. 1 resolution to censure and object to Gosling’s actions. It asserted that Gosling violated the Senate bylaws for the 2023 elections. During Gosling’s campaign, an associate obtained the email list of all first-year students and sent them a link to vote for class senator on behalf of Gosling and two other candidates. The AAS Constitution prohibits the use of email lists for campaigning purposes and told individuals not to send voting links.

Following an impeachment petition against Gosling raised by AAS Senator Taha Ahmad ’24, the Judiciary Council voted unanimously to send the petition to the Senate for a trial.

Gosling said the AAS was “wasting people’s time with all of the impeachments,” and added that the experience was difficult for him because he is a first-year international student, and that the whole process was not the “Amherst experience” he had expected.

For those reasons, Gosling announced his resignation.

Gosling’s impeachment trial comes less than a year after an impeachment trial of former AAS President Sirus Wheaton ’23 in December 2022, during which the Senate voted not to remove Wheaton.

AAS Senator Thomas O’Connor ’26 responded to the criticism that the impeachments were a waste of time, noting that Gosling’s impeachment trial was not overly time-consuming.

“We’re not diverting useful resources to getting him out,” he said. “What [the AAS] does is actually very important. It’s sad that a lot of people know us just for impeaching.”