Tuesday night's forum about funding for the University of Wisconsin Roman Catholic Foundation brought to light a much larger — and more important — issue: Are segregated fees a good thing for our student organizations?

The answer to that question is an unequivocal "No."

The process of allocating segregated fees is by its very nature supposed to be viewpoint neutral, the basic concept being that the ideology of the group applying for funding and the ideology of the Student Services Finance Committee members cannot — or should not — come into play. The result is that any group that wants money should get money so long as it meets some very basic requirements. Now, many may say that this is a good thing and that it enhances the marketplace of ideas on campus, and if not for the sake of segregated fees, the university as a whole would lose out on the many programs it funds.

It sounds good, but in practice we end up funding groups with very specific political agendas that many students find distasteful and a waste of their money; after all, segregated fees basically amount to taxes levied by the Associated Students of Madison on students. If viewed in that way, what would be the reaction if the state of Wisconsin were to introduce a new tax that was designed to subsidize the funding of groups such as Planned Parenthood and Pro-Life Wisconsin? Of course, citizens on both ends of the political spectrum would be rightly upset, but that is exactly what we are doing with segregated fees.

Liberals on campus who oppose UWRCF's funding are now coming to realize something that some of us have known for a long time: Segregated fees going to groups they do not support is a frustrating and unpleasant prospect.

Not all segregated fees are bad. The segregated fees that fund our hospitals, support the unions and provide our bus passes benefit all students regardless of political philosophy and provide an actual service to students.

The matter, however, goes much deeper than simple funding issues and whether general fund revenues should go toward student organizations. UWRCF also exposes the issue of who benefits from the segregated fee money. While UWRCF leaders maintain that the services they provide are open to all students and benefit all faiths, its detractors charge that only Catholic or Christian students would feel welcome to use the group's services.

The allegation is legitimate, but that very same logic would apply to a myriad of other student organizations, would it not? The LGBT center certainly does not benefit the entire campus, as they serve only a specific segment of the student body. The various diversity groups — most of which divide themselves along ethnic and racial lines by their very names — most likely attract only the groups they seek to represent. It is true for them and true for UWRCF.

I have no problem with student organizations that divide themselves along whatever lines they wish if their particular constituent group wants it, but those groups should not receive funding — it makes no difference if the group is religious, agnostic, liberal, conservative or anything else.

I know the justification many students use for segregated fee funding — especially for groups such as the MultiCultural Student Coalition, Sex Out Loud, LGBT and many others — is that those groups provide a service to students on campus that the university itself does not offer or that students would be deprived of if the funding were not available. The problem with such logic is that there are hundreds of registered student organizations on campus, but only a very small percentage of them rely on funding provided by segregated fees. Why is it that so many organizations can survive without SSFC stepping in, but these few groups cannot survive without their aid?

If an organization is important enough to the campus community, its members will support it with dues and fundraisers, but asking the entire student body to support them with mandatory segregated fees is wrong.

This has nothing to do with the identities of the groups that receive funding and everything to do with students being required to support organizations they would not otherwise support.

The controversy surrounding UWRCF brings this issue into very simple and clear terms: The groups that receive funding from segregated fees are not universally supported but are still subsidized through the basic student fees that all of us pay each semester. It is time that this practice is stopped.

Mike Hahn ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in history and political science.