By Robert Salonga
Daily Bruin Reporter
Feeling the urgency of its approaching deadline, the
Undergraduate Students Association Council met Tuesday in a final
push toward making its bylaws compliant with University of
California guidelines.
The council has until Friday to revise its bylaws regarding
student group sponsorship and mandatory student fee allocation,
which is a task members have been working on since summer. Already
this year, Chancellor Albert Carnesale has granted USAC two
extensions, the first on Feb. 27 and then again on April 13.
But it seems UCLA could be alone among UCs in its efforts to
achieve compliance. The student governments at UC Berkeley, Irvine
and San Diego are not taking any steps similar to the ones at
UCLA.
Lance MacLean, associate executive student director at UCI, said
he does not see a need for extensive action toward funding
revisions.
“When we fund a group, the decision is not based on
content, but on the program,” MacLean said.
USAC bylaws are under revision for compliance with UC
guidelines, which dictate that a student government must distribute
student fees to groups without regard to viewpoint.
A similar situation occurred at the University of Wisconsin,
when in 1996 students questioned the legality of compulsory student
fees used to fund groups with whom they did not agree.
Led by Scott Southworth, a group of Wisconsin students sued the
university, and the case eventually went to the U.S. Supreme Court.
In March 2000, the Court ruled 9-0 that mandatory student fees were
legal as long as they are distributed with viewpoint
neutrality.
“We have not formally taken any action, but we do comply
with the Southworth decision,” said Kevin Sabet, former
senator of the Associated Students of UC Berkeley.
MacLean added that achieving true viewpoint neutrality is not
only extremely difficult, but arbitrary as well.
“The only true way to do it is to take program
requirements, dump them in a hat, and come up with a formula saying
we’ll give funding to the groups we pick out,” he said.
“Otherwise you’re taking content into
consideration.
At Tuesday’s USAC meeting, attorney David Maggiore-Anet
told the council that the Southworth case is not legally applicable
to UCLA’s situation. Maggiore-Anet was retained by the
University of California Students Association, which lobbies for
issues such as student fees.
“Under the law, nothing would need to be changed if
we’re just looking at Southworth,” said Maggiore-Anet,
who was hired last week by USAC for advisory purposes.
Maggiore-Anet alluded to the 1993 California Supreme Court case
Smith v. UC Regents, which prompted the establishment of a
mechanism that allows students to apply for a refund if they object
to groups that receive a portion of their mandatory fees.
Because of this mechanism, fees assessed from students in the UC
system are not by definition mandatory, and therefore the viewpoint
neutrality clause in the Southworth case does not apply.
Administrative Representative Lyle Timmerman said this has been
the case all along.
“I’ve been trying to make it clear that nothing the
university is saying is directly involved in the Southworth
matter,” Timmerman said at the meeting.
But because of UC guidelines, USAC must still make its funding
bylaws viewpoint neutral.
The guidelines were revised by the UC Office of the President in
October 1999 to comply with decisions of the Smith case and the
1995 U.S. Supreme Court ruling of Rosenberger v. Rector and
Visitors of the University of Virginia. These cases ensured fee
allocation on a content-neutral basis as well as the refund
mechanism.
“The question becomes whether (council’s) bylaws
come in compliance with university guidelines,” Maggiore-Anet
said.
He said the UC situation differs from the one in Wisconsin
because at the time of the Southworth decision, UW did not have a
refund mechanism in place.
Doc Khaleghi, president of the Associated Students of UCSD, said
he believes the refund mechanism is sufficient for compliance, and
that bylaw amendment is not needed.
“We didn’t find it necessary,” he said.
“We have made attempts to abide by that rule.
Khaleghi added that UCSD passed a resolution supporting the
Southworth decision.
“There are two reasons to take steps: to make a statement,
and to make sure we’re in compliance,” he said.
“We did the former with the resolution, and we do the
latter since we know it’s a UC policy,” he
continued.
USAC has proposed several revisions, but council has not fully
agreed that they comply with UC guidelines.
Timmerman said council’s attempts at revision so far have
not been effective in terms of reaching compliance.
“With all due respect to the recommendations made, they
are not one iota different from what I saw in August 2000,”
he said.
The council is currently in the drafting process and will vote
on revisions Friday.