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Group asks Wiley to veto funding
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by Andriy Pazuniak
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
A national watchdog group urged Chancellor John Wiley Monday to veto a funding decision made Feb. 15 for the University of Wisconsin Roman Catholic Foundation.
In response to UWRCF being awarded more than $147,000 in student segregated-fee funding by the Associated Students of Madison Student Council, the Freedom From Religion Foundation wrote a letter to Wiley asking him to overturn the "misguided decision by students."
"[UWRCF] should promulgate its anti-woman, anti-gay, anti-abortion, anti-birth control, and anti-freedom of conscience message without 'robbing' student fees at a public institution," FFRF Co-President Annie Gaylor wrote in the letter.
After ASM approves funding for student organizations on the UW campus, the budgets go to the chancellor for final approval.
In a phone interview Monday, Gaylor said that by not overturning the funding decision, UW would "open the floodgates" for other religious organizations to request university funding to "proselytize" to students.
"You don't get involved in religion with public funding," Gaylor said. "[UWRCF] wants to use segregated fees to make the Catholic Church bigger and wealthier on campus."
However, UWRCF representative Tim Cruise said UWRCF is not a church and should not be treated any differently than other student organizations because it holds a particular viewpoint.
UWRCF was originally denied funding by the ASM Student Services Finance Committee last semester in large part because of its religious viewpoint. However, after a series of appeals to the ASM Student Judiciary, ASM ultimately decided a religious belief should be treated the same as any other viewpoint and should not be discriminated against.
Cruise said Gaylor and FFRF misunderstood this point.
"The letter is misguided," Cruise said. "It seems to be quite unaware of Supreme Court cases on funding student religious groups on campus."
Cruise also refuted FFRF's claims that UWRCF was anti-gay, anti-woman and against other beliefs.
"We're objective," Cruise said, adding that a student organization's funding could not be denied because it holds particular religious beliefs.
Gaylor did admit in an interview to not having followed the UWRCF case closely and to not being aware of the specific policies in place at UW to determine how to allocate student segregated fees.
Interim Dean of Students Lori Berquam said FFRF had the right to voice its opinions, but that ultimately the chancellor will make his decision based primarily on state and university guidelines, along with a multitude of other considerations.
"Bottom line, [Wiley] will have to make the best decisions for our students," Berquam said.
SSFC Vice Chair Eric Saar echoed Berquam's sentiment.
"I don't feel an outside organization should … influence the decision one way or the other," Saar said.
Rocco Rapaldi (February 28, 2006 @ 8:27am):
Gaylor should definitely stay out of it and Wiley should definitely remove the money from the final budget. "We're objective" says Tim Cruise of the Roman Catholic Foundation -- right. It sounds like something TOM Cruise would say about Scientology.
Anonymous (February 28, 2006 @ 8:46am):
UWRCF has manipulated the segregated fee process this year. Certainly, UWRCF uses segregated fees for educational programming, and that is important, yet the organization uses fees to continually exploit the gray areas in funding organizations that are religious in nature. While a complete veto of UWRCF's budget would be a major mistake, the Chancellor must take action to curb the over allocation of fees to UWRCF done by ASM Council members a few weeks ago.
Anonymous (February 28, 2006 @ 3:45pm):
The "victory" in Southworth opened the floodgates. If you fund ideological speech, you invite everyone to the table.
To those who gloated over the result in Southworth: You made your bed, now lie in it!
