The Associated Students of Madison has a cult-like enclave of late. It’s not the “suits squadron” of ASM leadership, MPOWER or even the Max Love fanclub.
No, the Campus Women’s Center saga has proven that a rather different ritual has run rampant over ASM — viewpoint neutrality. And while CWC was rightfully denied, it still might be time to pull back on the reins a bit.
First off, for those of you who don’t know what VPN is, look up the CliffsNotes’ version of two Supreme Court cases — Rosenberger v. Rectors of University of Virginia and Scott Southworth v. University of Wisconsin Board of Regents.
Secondly, for those at home wondering, yes, that is the same Scott Southworth that gets a hard-on from telling kids to ignore their hard-ons.
Thirdly, the two cases essentially say a university can levy fees for the purpose of funding student groups with different viewpoints as long as it does it in a viewpoint-neutral manner. That means whoever is doling out the funds can’t take the viewpoint of the group into consideration.
When ASM was tasked with making sure its funding criteria was up to snuff, it tweaked things a bit and submitted them for review in a lower court case. The court found its system was still not VPN. ASM went back to the drawing board, created criteria it felt to be VPN and submitted them again. While the same lower court ruled against them, an appellate court overturned that ruling and ASM’s seg fee gravy train was back on the rails.
Except it wasn’t really. Nearly every year, a group would come forward asking for money, it would be denied for some reason, and lawsuits would commence. Badger Catholic, then known as UW Roman Catholic Foundation, famously sued the university when it was denied because it was Catholic. When students on Student Services Finance Committee argued they couldn’t fund a religious group, the courts disagreed and many hearty laughs were had at the wasted time and money.
Because of these rash of lawsuits, SSFC had to tighten up its criteria again. What resulted after a year and a half was the wonderfully complex and intricate system we have today — it has to be as tailorable to the entire campus as possible, 51 percent of it has to be a direct service to campus and that can’t include events or series of events. Oh, and its up to SSFC’s discretion as to what constitutes “events.”
For the better part of my time here, I’ve felt pretty secure with these regulations. It limits the definition of what groups deserve large amounts of money, limits their expenditures on targeted services and keeps the amount spent on student groups relatively low and responsible.
But while CWC didn’t deserve funding for GSSF or its full Finance Committee Operations Grant this time around based on the purpose of the grant, I think this case may have revealed an excess of caution when it comes to VPN.
ASM Secretary Kurt Gosselin, who treats First Amendment law cases like three-course meals waiting to be devoured, put CWC in the hot-seat and suggested cutting its grant because the original amount, $33,100, was too high and could have been a violation of viewpoint neutrality. As Gosselin and Rep. Matt Manes suggested, Finance Committee members wanted to help out CWC, and this was a covert way to do it.
Members of SSFC did the same thing when denying CWC a second chance at the application process, saying that such a move could be a VPN violation, as it would indicate favoritism.
Even a suggestion by ASM Rep. Erik Paulson to add a second round of eligibility hearings for General Student Services Fund groups was balked at — how could such a thing be anything else other than a veiled boost to CWC?
The problem with this thinking is we’ve forgotten what VPN really means — you don’t take the viewpoint of the group into consideration. Does a second chance for a group really mean members of SSFC support its views? Not if everyone agrees the reason for denial was procedural rather than ideological and the standard is applied across the board.
Yes, student groups may cite the initiation of this procedural parachute as signs of favoritism and use it in their cases against SSFC. They will likely still lose their cases, however, if their denial of funding was justified.
Let’s not forget the sort of cases that got people in hot water for VPN violations — people stating “We can’t fund you, you’re Catholic!” and SSFC members giving a group minimal funding for no apparent reason. (And having ties to an opposing group at the same time.) It’s stated or implicit biases in the process of funding that bring legitimate lawsuits against University of Wisconsin. Badger Catholic had a legitimate case because the stated rejection was its religious background. Collegians For a Constructive Tomorrow had no case because its claim was Wisconsin Public Interest Research Group got different treatment than them.
This is not to say the seg fee pendulum should swing back toward “money for everyone,” but it might be worth it to put in one or two “second chance” safeguards in case a group really does get rejected for a huge, but avoidable, mistake. Sure, maybe CWC still wouldn’t get funding due to pure incompetence, but at least it couldn’t claim the center wasn’t given a fair shot.
Viewpoint neutrality is a standard, but it shouldn’t be an end in itself. SSFC would be wise to assert that fact next session.
As long as its VPN, of course.
Jason Smathers ([email protected]) is a graduate student in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
