Last week, this newspaper reported that Christopher Loving, former president of the Black Student Union (BSU) chapter here on campus, was charged with stealing, having withdrawn approximately $1,400 for personal use from the student group’s segregated fee funds account. This newspaper also reported that as president, Loving had “sole control” of his group’s checkbook and controlled the bank account’s activity.

With the beginning of this semester, the Associated Students of Madison (ASM) will begin distributing segregated fees — a portion of your tuition bill totaling over $300 for full-time students. ASM, as our student government, makes such financial decisions annually through its Student Services Finance Committee (SSFC) and Finance Committee (FC). As this process begins, this story involving Loving and the FC-funded BSU should remind students to never blindly trust those who allocate and spend this segregated fee money.

Loving faces a misdemeanor charge, which could result in up to nine months of jail time and $10,000 in fines. Although criminal cases resulting from segregated fee abuse occur infrequently, students should not assume that all other segregated fee money they pay into the system goes to legitimate and necessary services and education.

For example, the Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán (MEChA) chapter on campus used segregated fee dollars to publish a poem titled, “[expletive deleted] the White Boy.” The United States Constitution guarantees freedom of speech and the legality of this poem, but does not guarantee this organization the right to force others to fund it, and doing so through student fees allocated by SSFC constitutes a gross abuse of the system.

An organization called Women Happily Advocating Masturbation (WHAM) used segregated fee dollars to host a “Sex Workers Art Show.” WHAM broke no law in using their FC grant for this purpose, but they too grossly abused student fee money. Several other organizations have never faced criminal charges but have similarly abused segregated fees.

Nearly two years ago, a member of ASM Student Judiciary, the dispute resolution branch of ASM, wrote a concurring opinion for a particular case. Although concurring opinions generally carry little weight, his thoughts illustrate the attitude unfortunately prevalent among many ASM members. He wrote, “The SSFC is NOT to be an inquisition where organizations are to be quizzed and challenged — organizations are merely to be evaluated.” He later continued, “An organization is to be treated with respect, not attacked by SSFC members.”

Far too many sitting members of the FC and SSFC, many of whom have direct ties to organizations seeking money from these committees, subscribe to an extreme form of this philosophy and feel that their primary purpose is to create a comfortable and welcoming environment. True, organizations should not, for example, have to divulge the medical history of every member, or any other private information clearly beyond the scope of financial hearings. However, FC and SSFC members will often completely avoid conflict during hearings to the point of allowing clear abuse to go unchallenged.

Groups demanding more than $100,000 from students’ pockets for any purpose should not feel comfortable doing so and should have a lot of explaining to do. The SSFC and FC should never welcome abuse of any amount of money by any group, and must not hesitate to challenge, reduce, or, in some cases, even deny funding altogether to prevent this.

Recently, many SSFC and FC members attended a weekend retreat, filled with several presentations on various topics. The weekend focused on orienting new members with ASM bylaws and other policies. To their credit, event organizers instructed SSFC and FC members to check over budgets before the decision hearings, according to SSFC member Erica Christenson. However, not one presentation focused exclusively on preventing fraud and abuse. As treasurers of fee money from 40,000 students on this campus, that is the most important task of ASM’s financial committees.

For too long, our student government has, either ignorantly or intentionally, disregarded the elephant in the living room that student fee abuse has become. Dishonest individuals can never be completely deterred from criminal use of student fee money, but by demanding strict accountability for every dollar students pay in segregated fees, ASM can restore a sense of respect for those fees and their use.

Mark Baumgardner ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in electrical engineering.