Newly-appointed Associated Students of New Mexico State University vice president Ehtesham Shareef did not take much time to get comfortable in his new position to make headlines of his own.

The Round Up Editor in Chief Derek Gonzales recently wrote an editorial that was highly critical of the student government at NMSU. This sparked outrage among some currently working within ASNMSU and even former employees of the government. 

This led to former ASNMSU pro-tempore DeLorean Forbes submitting a letter to the editor, sent to the email of Gonzales and his staff, titled “Opinion: A defense of your student government,” on April 15 at 8:02 a.m.

After days without the letter being run and communication between Gonzales and Forbes suggesting that it would not happen because of the lack of credibility the author held as somebody no longer attending NMSU or living in New Mexico, The Round Up received an email from Shareef Wednesday afternoon that said the following: “I would like to submit to the Round-Up an Op-Ed “Opinion: Defense of your student government” in my capacity as the Interim Vice President of ASNMSU. I feel like through-out the last two months, there wasn’t any defense presented from ASNMSU’s opinion to explain the reasoning to initiate an impeachment of the former President Morrow. I am hopeful the Round-up will give me this opportunity to defend the allegations that were presented against ASNMSU, through this Op-Ed.”

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The Round Up reached out to Shareef for comment to explain the situation immediately after receiving the letter that appeared to be plagiarized.

“This was kind of drafted together — we sat down together and drafted it,” Shareef said. “He wanted to send it in the first place but he was told he could not submit it since he is not a student of this campus … I am a little bit new at this whole vice president position thing.”

Forbes currently attends the University of Arizona in Tucson as a J.D. Candidate inside the institution’s James E. Rogers College of Law. 

Shareef explained the reason he did not put his name on the original letter submitted by Forbes is because he did not want to get involved with any controversies. Once the request from Forbes did not publish, he then became comfortable submitting the op-ed himself without Forbes’ name as an author. 

Shareef said they should have put both his and Forbes’ name in the second submission despite only Forbes’ name being present in the first submission.