Some refer to segregated fees as "stealth tuition." Student taxes, though, might be a more fitting name, and the beneficiaries of these taxes — often student organizations — receive student welfare.
It's about time someone takes a closer look at who is on the dole, and with the help of the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents, that time might be sooner than later.
Last week, an audit of student segregated fees at UW-Madison was requested by Regent Tom Loftus. The request was referred to a committee, which must report to the Board next month with the specifics of such an audit.
The Board should take it upon themselves to analyze the substantial amount of fees going to student organizations. Over the last five years, fees have increased more than 33 percent, with students now paying $662 to fill a coffer often utilized by rapacious student organizations and programs.
The examples are abundant.
Every year, this institution spends millions of dollars of segregated fees to promote "diversity." But the goals of these organizations — including the Asian and Pacific American Council, Multicultural Student Coalition, and MEChA, among others — seem to promote exclusiveness more often than inclusiveness. And we can't forget the Diversity Education Program — housed under the Office of the Dean of Students, yet heavily entangled with MCSC.
This would be an opportune time for the Board to look into how multicultural cookouts, soccer tournaments and poetry readings — never widely advertised or attended — are benefiting the entire campus population and its supposed quest for diversity. Is Plan 2008 really not enough?
It seems as though the leaders of these organizations only seek to create such groups to cash in on the funding provided by the proverbial cash cow — that being the Student Services Finance Committee, the body charged with doling out the student fees.
To put it in prospective, who could pass up thousands of dollars in student fees to pay for trips to warm destinations and salaries not found anywhere else on campus?
The taxpayers of this state — who provide a significant revenue source for UW — deserve to know how these fees are being used. If they were made aware, then the Board might see that people like Edna from Sturgeon Bay wouldn't be too pleased about fees being spent on "sexual facilitators" such as porn and erotica or vacations to Miami Beach when, at the same time, students are protesting tuition increases.
Though tuition has increased substantially in the last several years, this institution should consider decreasing the "tuition" it can control — segregated fees.
But in addition to an audit of segregated fees, the Board should take a closer look at the fee distribution process — this campus would be a good starting point.
If they did, they would see the process on this campus is unconstitutional under the Supreme Court's decision in Southworth.
The most recent example of the flawed process was the repeated denial of the University of Wisconsin Roman Catholic Foundation for segregated fee funding earlier this semester by SSFC. Fortunately, the student judiciary bailed SSFC out of its conundrum and blatant disregard for the Supreme Court's decisions regarding the distribution of segregated fees.
But the problems of SSFC run much deeper.
This spring, I was a member of the committee responsible for selecting at-large members to SSFC. When candidates were done with their interview, they were handed a sheet of paper that discussed "viewpoint neutrality" and asked to sign it stating they had read it.
SSFC is going to have to do better than hand out a sheet of paper and discuss viewpoint neutrality to its members if it desires a fee distribution process that is constitutional. It will require an entire reexamination of the criteria used to determine segregated fee eligibility and distribution. Unfortunately, this inquiry will most likely require pressure from the Board for such changes to be made.
The segregated fee distribution process on this campus has always been a contentious issue — often a constant fight between those who prefer fiscal responsibility and those who benefit from institutional handouts. And much like government entitlements, those who receive such aid are not particularly inclined to give it up.
Someone must be willing to take the first step to repairing a broken and wasteful process. Those most capable of fixing this process are the regents of this university.
Darryn Beckstrom ([email protected]) is a doctoral student in the department of political science and a second-year MPA candidate in the La Follette School of Public Affairs.
