KEITH ENRIQUEZ/ Daily Bruin Senior Staff Janet
Quindara performs at a USAC-funded Samahang Pilipino event
last year.
By Linh Tat
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
Providing fair funding to all student groups is one of the
biggest issues facing the Undergraduate Students Association
Council this year.
USAC was to approve amendments to its bylaws at Tuesday’s
meeting to ensure fair funding, but decided to table the decision
until next week.
“Once you pass this, it doesn’t mean it’s
never going to change,” Jerry Mann, director of student
support services and the student union, said to council members at
the meeting.
“We may see this document again,” he said.
“These are your bylaws that can be amended at any
time.”
The issue of ensuring fair funding came in light of two federal
court rulings that defined how mandatory student fees are to be
distributed among organizations.
In the case of University of Wisconsin v. Southworth, a federal
judge ruled in March that public universities can collect student
activity fees if the money is distributed to groups on a content
neutral basis.
But the case reopened last month when U.S. District Court Judge
John C. Shabaz said there were flaws in Wisconsin’s
system.
Like UCLA, elected student government officials at the
University of Wisconsin determine how much funding to allocate to
student groups. Shabaz said he was concerned that because the
student officials were elected, they represented views of the
majority of students and weren’t necessarily concerned with
neutrality.
The ruling of the Wisconsin court will help USAC determine their
next step.
Also, back in 1995, the case Rosenberger v. University of
Virginia stated that fees must be allocated irrespective of an
organization’s political, religious or ideological views.
Lyle Timmerman, administrative representative to USAC, informed
council members of these cases over the summer. Since then, the
council has held several ad hoc meetings to discuss amending its
bylaws.
“Right now our biggest problem is to get these guidelines
together, compliant with the court cases, so we can apply it to our
major funding sources,” said Community Service Commissioner
Fannie Huang, who also sits on the Budget Review Committee that
allocates funding to student groups.
The most recent draft of revisions to USAC’s bylaws, to be
approved next week, states “the opportunity to apply for
funding must be equally shared by all fee paying undergraduate
students.”
It also mentions the necessity of content-neutral funding.
“Allocations are made such that no organization is
discriminated against based on its views, nor is any related
programmatic activity discriminated against based on the views of
its sponsors or participants.”
Currently, under Article II of USAC’s bylaws, “the
Council shall be the judge of an individual group to hold a given
status, which shall be determined by a vote of two-thirds of all
voting members of Council.”
This “given status” refers to student advocacy
groups, such as the Asian Pacific Coalition, who receive office
space in Kerckhoff Hall, in addition to money from USAC.
To be considered for sponsorship by USAC, student groups must
meet three criteria: they must be recognized by the university,
have a constitution and have a sponsor.
According to Facilities Commissioner Steve Davey, who was
appointed at Tuesday’s meeting to be on the Constitutional
Review Committee that examines USAC’s guiding documents, the
problem with how groups currently receive funding is that a few of
the organizations receive most of the money.
Groups with the most funding from USAC have traditionally been
those associated with Praxis, the political slate that includes
Samahang Pilipino, African Student Union and MEChA.
“Student government should not just fund the student
groups that got them elected into office,” Davey said.
“The whole budget process gets too politicized,” he
said. “It’s really the spoils system.”
While running for office last spring, USAC President Elizabeth
Houston said she would work to ensure fair funding to student
organizations.
Student groups have been operating this year on the base budgets
allocated to them over the summer. Because the school year is
almost halfway through, these budgets most likely won’t
change, Davey said.
Amending USAC’s bylaws has been a long process, Davey
said, because council members must examine each word closely, and
members have opposing views of what should be stated.
“It’s not glamour, it’s tedious, but
that’s what we’re here to do,” he said.