This summer, in its editorial “USAC’s hazy
allocation of funds inconsistent, unfair” (Aug. 30) the Daily
Bruin rightly noted that the Undergraduate Students Association
Council’s funding processes were too arbitrary to naturally
produce fair results and that further research would be required to
determine whether the results were in fact fair. Our findings
indicate that not only are the criteria for the point system and
minimum requirements overly subjective and uneven, but the results
are highly biased toward organizations supporting Students First!
and are rooted in that slate’s view of what constitutes a
student group worthy of funding.
There is little doubt that SF! groups were treated vastly better
than non-SF! groups. Our calculations divided organizations into
four categories: SF! (the slate’s officers and groups that
supported it but no other slates), opposition (the six groups and
officers who did not ally themselves with SF! in any way but
instead allied themselves with the Equal Access Coalition or
independents), mixed (the four groups that split their support
between EAC, independents and SF!), and neutral (no endorsements at
all).
SF! organizations received on average 62 percent more money than
Opposition organizations. Only one SF! group earned fewer points
than any of the Opposition groups. Additionally, all SF! offices
received more money than any Opposition office.
Applications for funding are evaluated using a point system.
Once points are assigned, budget allocations are made; the
allocations are supposedly influenced by point totals. Last year,
two separate analyses ““ one by the Bruin and another by a
USAC office ““ found that SF! awarded far more money per point
to groups that endorsed the slate than those that endorsed SURE, a
slate in opposition.
This year, though the final allocations remain highly biased,
there is an odd parity between the dollars per point of groups that
endorsed either SF! or Opposition organizations. SF! and Opposition
organizations received (adjusted for differing numbers of
evaluators) $26.40 and $25.43 per point, respectively, but Neutral
groups received only $16.54 per point. These bizarre results imply
that the system may have been manipulated to blunt expected
criticism by SF’s opponents, to force groups to take sides,
or perhaps even to appear fair by last year’s criteria. Of
course, as the Budget Review Committee ““ in what we consider
to be a violation of Undergraduate Students Association bylaws
““ has not released records of its internal deliberations, it
is impossible to know what exactly its true deliberations and
intentions were.
The unfairness then lies in the point system and its associated
criteria as well as in the biases of the review committee itself.
Each officer grants up to 35 points: 10 for the quality of the
application and the budget hearing and one to five points each for
five content-based criteria: groups that “supplement the
general curriculum of the university,” “support the
academic success, retention and recruitment,” provide
community service opportunities, co-program, and “provide
programming that is open to and encourages participation with the
campus community.” Officers on the review committee recused
themselves from judging groups that they were associated with, but
you wouldn’t know it by looking at their point totals: Seven
of the top 26 point-gaining groups are also seven of the eight
groups in which a review committee member abstained.
This year, an unprecedented 42 groups were denied funding
altogether, generally on account of a supposed failure to stimulate
(apparently political) debate or supplement the curriculum. But why
should hobby or academic clubs be forced to be political or even
engage in outreach or community service? And why must community
service clubs, like the unfunded Circle K and VITA, be political or
educational to be relevant and important?
The content-based criteria are a profile of typical SF!
organizations, which work together and sometimes work with ethnic
studies departments to promote the political interests, student
body percentage and general community welfare of those of their
“identity group.”
Identity groups of all types play a valuable role in the
community, but groups based on promoting specific pursuits ““
rather than specific sorts of people ““ are shortchanged or
prevented from receiving any funding at all. Many groups organized
around interests or activities, such as Badminton Club, Ballroom
Dance Club, Hockey Club, Karaoke Club, Kendo Club and Robotics
Project were thus unfunded. Even some identity-based clubs that did
not fit into SF’s mold, including Lebanese Social Club,
Coptic Orthodox Christian Club and Hellenic American Students were
denied funding.
The Lebanese Social Club planned on hosting a culture night this
year. Though many other groups received funding for culture nights,
LSC did not. Patrick Sislian, founder of the social club, said,
“You would think the base-budget committee would provide
funding for a new, struggling group like ours. We are trying to
integrate into the UCLA community through some of our planned
events, and USAC’s decision clearly puts a strain on our
goals. (The council) clearly ignored both our proposal and our
statements at the hearing.” The review committee also told
the social club that the dates for the club’s events were not
concrete enough. Natalie Batta, vice president of the club, was
furious with this decision because “in our case we could not
reserve any of our Bruin Plaza locations until August 16 and any
classrooms until the start of fall quarter. USAC should have been
more informed about the start of scheduling. Since we did not feel
it would be right to lie and make up exact dates for our
activities, the most concrete dates we could provide were the
quarters we planned our events in.”
We propose that USAC develop a set of criteria that, in
accordance with the demands of the Supreme Court, is entirely
content neutral. USAC should seek to measure the value of student
groups in terms of their ability to accomplish their goals and
their impact on the campus, ensuring that small groups can receive
enough funding to operate and that larger groups can receive enough
funds to maintain their size and scope. Proposals, interviews and
group histories should be evaluated and funded based on
demonstrable ability to pursue group’s goals and affect
campus life ““ but not based on their political
allegiances.
Knee is the executive director of the Bruin Republicans.
Binney is the president of the Robotics Club and the project chair
for Eta Kappa Nu. The Bruin Democrats, Bruin Republicans, Jewish
Student Union, Transfer Student Association, Nation 2 Nation, Asian
Greeks of UCLA, PreMed Asian Pacific American Medical Student
Association, Delta Tau Delta Fraternity, Association for Computing
Machinery, Eta Kappa Nu, Lebanese Social Club and Robotics Club
have pledged support for this submission.