In my last column that appeared on this editorial page, I pessimistically wrote about the SSFC budgets awaiting ASM council approval. I feared that ASM council would pass the budgets with little scrutiny. After all, last year’s council barely flinched when rubber-stamping an obscene segregated-fee increase. Fortunately, this year’s council proved me wrong.
Although council could have trimmed virtually every budget, they correctly targeted the grossly over-funded budgets of five organizations: Wunk Sheek, Asian Pacific American Council, SAFE Nighttime Services, Multicultural Student Coalition (MCSC), and the Diversity Education Specialists (DES). Among these organizations, DES is particularly illustrative of the flaws in the current segregated-fee system.
The DES funding saga began in early September when SSFC denied this organization funding eligibility due to several blatant violations of the eligibility criteria. During the eligibility hearing, DES members failed to prove that they operate independently of MCSC. In other words, they failed to prove that students were not being charged twice for the same service.
Dissatisfied with the ruling, DES members filed a viewpoint-neutrality appeal with Student Judiciary. Despite arguing viewpoint neutrality, DES never mentioned what viewpoint they felt was discriminated against as they argued their case. Although DES had no evidence to support their claims, Student Judiciary ruled in their favor.
In their ruling, Student Judiciary claimed that there was insufficient evidence to suggest that DES was a redundant service. This completely misses the point in two ways.
First, the organizations have the burden of proof. Each organization must prove complete compliance with the eligibility criteria. Otherwise, SSFC members must presume non-compliance. After all, in this system, money is confiscated from students who earn it and distributed to organizations to which it does not belong.
Second, only a complete leap in logic would suggest that this issue constitutes viewpoint discrimination.
One of the authors of the decision, and a good friend of Joe Laskowski (who presented the case for DES), remarked that she had a hard time writing the decision. Clearly, she had difficulty writing the decision not because of the amount of information presented, but rather, because the facts of the case did not support the pre-determined conclusion.
Anyone who writes a lab report with measured data that does not match the theoretical results can relate to this situation. It was pretty clear to see that the decision in this case was pre-determined when two members of Student Judiciary were playing tic-tac-toe during the defense presentation.
Even more disturbing than the decision was the administration’s reaction to it. Instead of condemning a biased decision, several members of the administration came to an ASM council meeting and spoke forcefully in favor of granting DES funding eligibility. How sad it would be if students saw a substantial increase in their tuition bill next year as a result of members of Student Judiciary and the administration illegitimately stretching their tentacles into areas in which they do not belong.
This could be prevented with a long-overdue opt-in segregated-fee system, but for now, ASM Council must have the courage to respond. DES needs to have its wings clipped, and the other four student organizations need to have their budgets drastically reduced.
Over the years, students have become fed up with the shenanigans that resulted in exponentially increasing segregated-fee bills. It is now time for the fiscally responsible members of ASM to respond once again.
Mark Baumgardner ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in electrical engineering.
