Opinion

The paradox of viewpoint-neutrality

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The UW Greens are right.

Monday evening, Student Judiciary heard a complaint from the Greens contending that the budget process is not viewpoint-neutral.

We could have told you this six months ago.

Last March, federal Judge John C. Shabaz ruled that under the current system, “determining funding eligibility remains a discretionary exercise.”

This is so obvious that it is almost laughable it took a court of law to establish it as fact. It is impossible that the 14 members of the Student Services Finance Committee considered the Greens’ budget without being discretionary.

The main problem, as Judge Shabaz noted, is “the requirement … that a [registered student organization] provide an undefined ‘educational benefit and service.’”

This requires answering “questions such as whether an Registered Student Organization has a ‘clear’ purpose and goals, whether it offers a ‘substantially equivalent service’ as provided elsewhere and whether it ‘adequately answered’ the questions of the funding committee.”

But the problem is not the SSFC by-laws. It is much more fundamental.

Seg fees, when distributed as they are now, are inherently not viewpoint-neutral.

The SSFC-mandated “education benefit and service” provided by politically active groups is supposedly the information they provide. But for education to be “beneficial” intrinsically requires the information be correct — no one benefits if false information is provided. Thus whenever SSFC rules an advocacy group such as the Greens provides an “educational benefit and service,” they are saying the Greens’ “information” is beneficial and thus, correct.

So what would happen if, for example, a group advocating Starbucks, Taco Bell and drilling for oil requested money from the committee? Each of these positions is in direct opposition to those of the Greens. To provide funding would make a mockery of the idea of a beneficial service, for at least one group would be using student funds to provide wrong information.

But, assuming the “anti-Greens” have waited the pre-requisite two years and will offer the exact same type of resources as the Greens, viewpoint-neutrality means SSFC has no choice but to fund them.

This fundamental paradox will not be fixed until SSFC allocates fees only to true student services like SafeRIDE and the Rape Crisis Center. Allocating money to politically active groups in a viewpoint-neutral manner is impossible. Students’ rights can be protected only if they are allowed to determine what politics they will support.