Case

At one school, candidates for student council president were required to have no failing grades on their most recent report card. One student who wished to run was disqualified because of a single subject. That student later wrote a piece questioning whether this eligibility requirement was legitimate — but was given no platform to share it within the school.

Generalization

This touches on one of the foundational questions in democratic theory: who is eligible to hold elected office?

In national elections in Japan, candidacy rights extend to all citizens above a certain age, regardless of academic performance, employment history, or disciplinary record. No such restrictions exist at that level.

Why, then, are different rules considered acceptable in school elections?

Argument

Tying eligibility to grades or disciplinary history is, as a general principle, unjustifiable.

A restriction on candidacy can only be justified when it reflects a condition genuinely necessary to perform the duties of the office. Extremely low attendance — to the point where the student physically cannot carry out the role — might be worth debating. But academic performance and past disciplinary incidents have no direct relationship to a student’s capacity to represent their peers and run a student council. In practice, such requirements function as a mechanism for selecting students the school finds convenient — not students the electorate chooses.

Counterargument

“Student council officers represent the school and should model exemplary behavior,” the counterargument runs.

This is intuitive, but it conflates two meanings of “representative.” In representative democracy, a representative is not the average of those who elected them — they are someone entrusted with a mandate. Students with failing grades are also members of the school community and deserve to be represented. And crucially, it is the student voters — not the administration — who should decide who is worthy of that trust.

Question for readers

Does your school’s student election impose eligibility requirements on candidates? If so, how were those requirements determined, and by whom?