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Chancellor returns 7 groups for review
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by Nick Penzenstadler
Friday, November 17, 2006
The Student Services Finance Committee was forced to reconsider weeks of previous decisions, after an e-mail from University of Wisconsin Chancellor John Wiley Thursday.
The e-mail, received by SSFC Chair Zach Frey shortly before the meeting began, called for SSFC to review seven groups' budgets. The chancellor's memorandum cited university policy prohibiting student organizations from receiving student segregated fees for off-campus offices.
"It is against system policy to grant any funding for any rent, overhead, or upkeep or insurance for buildings not owned by the university," Frey said.
Affected groups include Promoting Awareness and Victim Empowerment, Jewish Cultural Center, Sex Out Loud, Collegians for a Constructive Tomorrow, Wisconsin Public Interest Research Group, and most contentiously UW Roman Catholic Foundation.
The memo comes hot on the heels of UWRCF's dual lawsuits — a federal lawsuit against the UW System and four members of the UW-Madison administration and a Student Judiciary lawsuit against SSFC. UWRCF officials claim the university has engaged in religious discrimination against the Catholic group, while SSFC members have broken viewpoint neutrality obligations.
UWRCF spokesperson Tim Kruse said the chancellor's move suspiciously targeted his group.
"Anybody who doesn't realize what's happening there, doesn't have their eyes open. Everyone was funded until the day we applied, and they discovered a policy that they can't pay rent—that's ridiculous," Kruse said.
However, UW spokesperson John Lucas defended the university's position and said culpability with regard to the seven budgets under review lies with SSFC. Wiley allowed SSFC to grant UWRCF funding for their off-campus offices last year as a one-year exception to the rule, Lucas said.
Lucas added that Frey and Wiley have been communicating about whether registered student organizations can receive student segregated fee funding for off-campus offices, which led to Wiley's memorandum to Frey Thursday.
"They finally came back with the legal opinion, we decided we weren't going to grant more exemptions," Lucas said. "That brings us to today, and we have to downward revise those budgets."
According to Lucas, it is a coincidence that the memo was issued in the midst of the federal lawsuit.
UWRCF supporter Gina Pignotti said she would like the committee to consider the overall benefits of the organization.
"I understand that there has been a lot of tension in the past but we ask that we can set it aside and think of all of the students, and all of our needs," Pignotti said.
According to Frey, coming to a conclusion Monday became difficult due to hazy federal and university policy.
Frey said making funding decisions with regard to a religious organization at a public university is not clear-cut.
"The definition is not very clear, mainly with two principles; one being the separation clause, and one being the prohibition of gifts and donations," he said. "For partisan and religious organizations, some things are OK and some are not."
Frey detailed the black and white instances of funding where events like mass, funerals and weddings cannot be funded by SSFC.
"Hosting conferences or programs that revolve around prayer or an individual religious sect is not ok, sending students to a conference is," Frey said. "Anything that happens at a church building outside of a church service is either OK or in the grey area."
Associate Dean of Students Elton Crim said programs and events centered on proselytizing should not be funded with student segregated fees.
Kruse said the funding committee has been singling out the Catholic group for its religious affiliation.
"Now they're going through every activity we have and ask if we pray. As to proselytizing, every group proselytizes, including the chancellor and his wish that everyone said, 'no' on the marriage amendment — that's proselytizing," Kruse said. "To say that every other group can proselytize but the religious kids is ridiculous."
Kruse said UWRCF is being held to a different standard than other groups that try to spread their opinion.
"The outrageous thing about it is that it's being [headed up] right here by the university's representative Mr. Crim and ultimately the chancellor. They are actually training students in the art of religious discrimination. It's pathetic," Kruse said.
Crim declined to comment on the allegations against the university.
The UWRCF budget decision was tabled until Monday.
SSFC also approved a $57,099 budget for Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano/a de Aztlan, $153,419 budget for JCC and $673,100 for Child Care Tuition Assistance Program and $64,099 for PAVE.
The WISPIRG budget was tabled until Monday in order for to allow the organization to adjust their budget with regard to the off-campus rent issue.
—Joanna Pliner contributed to this article.
Anonymous (November 17, 2006 @ 8:37am):
"According to Lucas, it is a coincidence that the memo was issued in the midst of the federal lawsuit."
I guess they have to say this, but just be honest about it: the Chancellor messed up big time on this thing and now he is trying to fix it.
And Frey said, "Hosting conferences or programs that revolve around prayer or an individual religious sect is not ok, sending students to a conference is,"
I think the Chancellor and SSFC still don't understand that funding for prayer IS ok. Discriminating against a group because it is religious is exactly what viewpoint neutrality is supposed to protect.
Mark Etzel (November 17, 2006 @ 8:39am):
Wiley and his staff are hypocrites. They break the same University policies that they use to censor others. It's a case of do as I say not as I do.
The policy is: "University employees may not use these resources to support the nomination of any person for political office or to influence a vote in any election or referendum."
Yet Wiley and his staff advocate for a no vote on the marriage referendum. Then they tell the UWRCF not to proselytize. Wiley and his staff have violated the viewpoint neutrality ruling of the Supreme Court in denying religious groups SSFC funding. They are out of step with Wisconsin voters. And they violate the law.
It's not their job to advocate for an Election Day referendum. It's not their job to single out religious groups by selective application of the law, while allowing Sex Out Loud to receive $88,000 for handing out free sex toys to Undergraduates, and providing instruction to them on anal sex, pleasure from pornography, group sex, and masturbation.
I wish Wiley and his staff would take their oar out of the SSFC waters and do their job.
Anonymous (November 17, 2006 @ 8:47am):
Catholics already get enough money from stupid Catholics who follow the bishop around like sheep. They shouldn't get it from the University, too.
Anonymous (November 18, 2006 @ 12:03am):
Sex Out Loud and UWRCF are equally undeserving of student money. Organizations like GUTS and the Rape Crisis Center should receive funds directly from the University and they shouldn't have to justify their existance every two years. The seg fee system is simply unfair and unsustainable.
Anonymous (November 18, 2006 @ 2:57pm):
My name is Alden Gross and I happily served as the student government's VP Finance at the University of Maryland for 2 years. There are 2 unrelated issues going on here. First off, let me say I've read the 1998 Supreme Court decision and am impressed that there seems to be such interest and awareness from the Madison student body about this very delicate, robust budget process. Y'all are a model process, keep improving.
The FIRST issue has to do with viewpoint-neutral funding, which means you can't deny a group funding just before you disagree with the group's purpose. When you get into the weeds this becomes straightforward. You should fund requests if a group requested money for transportation to a church service. You are obligated to pay honoraria for a speaker who is a priest talking about religion (as long as the program is theoretically open to the University Community). The only thing, really, you can NOT fund, at the end of the day, is if the priest does a prayer or performs a Eucharist as part of his talk or ceremony. (and if the student group is unclear, I'd ask for special clarification; if they lie to us, we'll never know unless somebody tells us because we don't have any power to enforce).
The SECOND issue in this article has to do with a new rule down from the University lawyers saying we can't use student fee monies to pay for off-campus office spaces. As long as they've got documentation, this should hold up nicely. Coming from Maryland, I have dealth with this issue and WE DO fund off-campus offices/spaces. UW-Madison and UM-College Park are both public universities whose fees are held to state/federal laws; the only difference is that Wisconsin and Maryland are not the same state.
There's a funny catch-22 that the lawyers have put student groups and the Funding Review Board into by saying they wont pay for off-campus offices: If you can't find free office space off-campus, you must find a space oncampus to have an office. If you can't do that, you then can't receive money for any supplies/items that must be stored. Why? Two pieces of reasoning go into that conclusion. First, regardless of the pleasure of having your own space, publicly funded supplies can not be stored in a private residence, so you need a communal/public place. Second, since any on-campus space is managed by the University or a Department thereof, student fees can also not support an on-campus office space because those fees are not intended to get re-routed to facility support costs.
In summary, AS LONG AS the lawyers have documentation to back up the decision they made (and hey, they are lawyers), the Roman Catholic group has no case. The claim of discrimination is a smokescreen that muddles together two issues of office spaces and viewpoint neutral funding. The rule does suck and may be really problematic though, and so I hope somebody knocks some sense into the decision-makers.
Alden Gross
aldengross@gmail.com
Anonymous (November 19, 2006 @ 12:51pm):
Adden gave a good response but is missing a lot of the issues involved in this particular case. One of the many battles that the Catholics had to fight was in regards to who could sit on their board. Also, the letters from Wiley to ASM leadership are an important aspect of the case: his motive may not have been because of off campus space but because the group is religious.
