The Associated Students Inc. Board of Directors rescinded a strike against Director of Graduate Studies Hisham Hussain for failing to respond to emails in a timely manner on Wednesday.

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Hussain received the strike as part of ASI’s “three strikes” policy, meant to issue a strike each time a director fails to meet their duties. Hussain was initially set to appeal the strike, but it was changed to a warning.

ASI’s executive vice president is tasked with holding strikes and the president works with the executive director to elicit the strikes.

“The main goal with strikes is so that we hold board members accountable,” Executive Vice President Veronica Boulos said. “We don’t expect people to come into their roles knowing what to do.”

Boulos said she sees the policy not as a punishment, but a learning opportunity for directors. She said each director gets three strikes and if they contest it can go to a public hearing. If not, they’d be asked to resign.

The strike against Hussain was rescinded to a warning after he was able to demonstrate “technicality” issues with accessing emails in addition to needing time to get acclimated to standard procedure due to being a new board member.

Alec Tong, ASI vice president of university affairs, received two strikes over the summer, but requests for both appeals were denied.

Hussain declined to comment.

Some Sacramento State students, like fourth-year recreational therapy major Michelle Izaguirre, were disappointed to hear an ASI member already received a strike.

“I would’ve hoped that things wouldn’t have reached that point this soon, but it’s still early on in the semester,” Izaguirre said.

Jordan Goins, a fifth-year film major, said that while he wasn’t concerned about it becoming a pattern, he would like to see things at ASI settle down for a while.

“It’s unfortunate to hear but it could’ve been worse since it ended up being a warning,” Goins said.