The grassroots student campaign Save the Campus Women’s Center hosted its first volunteer meeting Sunday to strategize ways to raise awareness about Campus Women’s Center’s eligibility conflict with the Student Services Finance Committee.
Save the Campus Women’s Center declared they will not disband until the CWC’s funding is restored.
While most of the groups’ organizers have volunteered with CWC in the past, they are operating independently of the student organization.
Although Save the Campus Women’s Center is not affiliated with the actual organization in any way, members of CWC did attend the meeting to voice their support for the campaign.
“Your support and concern has been really inspirational, encouraging us to work all that much harder to resolve the eligibility conflict with SSFC,” said Yun-Jung Kim, outreach coordinator with CWC.
CWC was originally denied eligibility last week for General Student Service Funds on the grounds they did not prove at least 51 percent of their time was devoted to direct student services.
Kim said the denial was the result of an “honest mistake of vagueness,” and CWC was unclear as to what the documents they submitted had to show. She added CWC does not feel SSFC is “out to get them”.
Being denied a re-vote last Thursday, CWC has since re-examined their services, looking more closely at those that were glossed over in the original documents, and have come up with a new estimate of 58 percent of their time being dedicated to direct services, according to Cale Plamann, CWC’s procedural adviser.
“It is not that SSFC is arbitrarily denying the group eligibility,” Plamann said.
SSFC has granted CWC a hearing to be held this coming Thursday, in which the group will move for an appeal on the grounds due process was not followed in the original ruling.
Jenny Wustmann, Save the Campus Women’s Center co-founder and organizer, said there were problems with students remaining respectful and maintaining proper decorum when voicing their support for CWC at the hearing last Thursday. She encouraged everyone who supports CWC to attend, but reminded them to be respectful and considerate of the committee.
SSFC Rep. and former chair Carl Fergus attended the meeting with three other representatives and voiced his support for CWC’s mission, but said he could not use such sentiments in his vote or decision-making. All decisions of SSFC regarding funding of student groups must be viewpoint neutral, due to a 2001 U.S. Supreme Court case regarding UW’s segregated fee system.
Fergus went on to recommend CWC focus on other sources of funding.
The Save the Campus Women’s Center group discussed multiple campaign ideas including letter writing, hosting benefit poetry slams and concerts at local coffee shops, flyer canvassing and continuing to organize students to wear blue as an act of solidarity every Thursday.
Wustmann said a key point they hope to highlight in letters that will be sent to alumni, students and legislative officials is that just because CWC made a clerical paper mistake, the entire campus should not be forced to go without the valuable services the group provides.
The group will also be contacting state and national media services such as National Public Radio and Democracy Now to help raise awareness about the issue, according to Wustmann.
Two minor spelling errors in the original copy were corrected.
