If you have ever watched a movie that involves an element of fantasy ? any movie will do ? you may be able to understand why the Campus Antiwar Network?s most recent initiative has a similar undercurrent running through its facade of goodness: the feeling of the impossible crowned with the vague halo of moral righteousness. Unlike the movies, however, CAN may find that even the best causes are not as pure as we often believe, and that gravity is not always so willing to bend over backwards for would-be protagonists.

CAN?s latest scheme is centered around its attempt to get a proposal on the Associated Students of Madison?s spring ballot that, if passed, would supposedly enable five Iraqi students to attend the University of Wisconsin while paying in-state tuition rates. When the date of the spring referendum arrives, students will vote on whether or not to raise their own tuition fees by one dollar per semester to bring the Iraqi students to Wisconsin.

Here?s where gravity kicks in: ASM has no control whatsoever over student tuition. Trenell Darby, chair of ASM?s elections committee, made it clear the Board of Regents is the body with control over how much students pay for their education, so CAN?s proposal will serve as little more than UW?s own amateurish, nonbinding resolution on Iraq. Moreover, Mr. Darby also pointed out that if the past is any indicator, only five to 10 percent of the student population votes in those elections. Thus, even if through a benevolent quirk of fate, CAN?s proposal claws its way onto the ASM ballot, its validity will be negligible in the eyes of the Board of Regents.

And then there are the subtler ? but no less real ? moral implications of CAN?s latest move, which raises the question as to whether or not these students will be used as political fodder to further CAN?s objective of ending the war in Iraq.

Even if no seminars featuring the students are held, even if none of them are pressured to join any campus group, there is no possible way that CAN is ignorant of the potential benefits of having living testaments to the evils of war on campus. Although awareness of a problem so morally disconcerting as the war in Iraq is by no means a detestable objective, the proposal is premised on the notion that there is no better way to spend the money CAN will supposedly raise. From raising tuition to rescue low-income Wisconsin residents from financial ruin to purchasing medical care for innocent victims napalmed during the Vietnam War, equally valid charitable objectives abound.

However, no matter how just the cause, increasing tuition for what is strictly a charitable objective is an inadequate justification for imposing a good deed on others. The entire notion of charity is founded on the basic principle that donations of time and money are given willingly, not through any form of coercion. CAN?s ignorance of that fact is another point at which ? at least in the realm of moral reality ? its proposal falls short. If CAN would like the Board of Regents to raise tuition, it must demonstrate a clear educational benefit to the vast majority of the campus ? bringing in five students, no matter how deserving, will not suffice ? or otherwise turn to the fertile plains of private donations to accomplish its objective.

Attempting to raise tuition with no educational benefit to those whose tuition will be raised reeks of a plea for ideological favoritism. More significantly, as these self-appointed protagonists may learn with regard to ASM?s inability to raise tuition rates, even the most noble of ideas can be dashed to pieces on the unyielding intransigence of the real world.

Sam Clegg ([email protected]) is a freshman majoring in political science and economics.