Viewpoint neutrality ensures student group allocation

Enciso is the USAC internal vice president.

By Elias Enciso

I want to first thank the Daily Bruin Editorial Board for
correctly pointing out the dangers of misinterpreting the
Southworth U.S. Supreme Court decision (“Flawed law makes
allocation of funds impossible,” Viewpoint, Jan. 25).
But, there appears to be some confusion about Southworth that I
wanted to clear up.

The essence of the Southworth ruling was that student activities
are important to the university experience and thus the mechanisms
that fund them should be protected. The court laid out an important
principle: if the university is going to have a funding system, the
university must allow a very broad range of activities to be funded
and must allocate these funds without regard to the particular
organization’s viewpoint.

Unfortunately, this last point about viewpoint or content
neutrality has left some people a little confused. An accurate
reading of the Supreme Court decision reveals that viewpoint
neutrality refers to the process, not the outcome. The key is the
method of allocation: it must be fair, open and done without regard
for an organization’s opinions or standpoint.

Viewpoint neutrality is not about achieving parity in funding
for all groups or balancing the outcome of funding so that all
views on a particular issue are represented. The principle is that
funding decisions cannot be based on the organization’s point
of view or their popularity.

The concept of viewpoint neutrality, unfortunately has been
erroneously interpreted as meaning that all viewpoints must be
funded and at the same level. That’s like saying that in
order to fund a “Save the Whales,” one would need to
fund a “Kill the Whales” group. Furthermore, to ensure
a viewpoint neutral outcome one would need to give Save the Whales
the same amount as Kill the Whales even though Save the Whales
requires $10,000 in funding to run an elementary education program
and Kill the Whales only needs $1,000 to print flyers.

  Illustration by JARRETT QUON/Daily Bruin The Editorial
Board writes, “Dividing USAC funding among so many groups
would be detrimental to all of them.” Yes, I agree with the
board on this point. But further, such an outcome-oriented
interpretation of viewpoint neutrality violates the spirit of the
Supreme Court decision. An outcome-oriented viewpoint neutral
policy would encourage funding chaos: lottery systems, over-funding
some programs at the expense of others, strictly limiting who gets
funds. This is exactly the kind of chaos that is graphically
described by the Editorial Board.

All of this threatens the student’s ability to further
their educational experience by engaging in an open forum, which is
exactly what Southworth wanted to avoid. This kind of policy would
damage the marketplace of ideas, diminish student activism and
restrict the student’s voice. Of course I want to avoid this
and by following the viewpoint neutral process policy, I will both
adhere to Southworth and have a fair, open and orderly allocation
system.

At UCLA, an “effective method of disbursing funds on a
content-neutral basis” does exist. It just requires focusing
on process and not outcome.

So, funding levels may be different for different groups, and
some groups may get funding while others do not. The important
thing is that these decisions and differences are not based on the
views of the groups. Funding decisions should be based on a careful
consideration of criteria that do not evaluate the group’s
message or popularity.

It’s appropriate to consider a number of questions: Is the
group’s proposal fiscally responsible? Does the organization
duplicate services or activities already present on campus? Are
their proposed activities legal? Have they maximized other
fundraising and donations? An organization’s response to all
of these considerations would be important factors in how one would
decide to distribute limited resources, and none of them raise a
question about the group’s point of view.

USAC intends on funding a broad range of activities. As a
practical matter, however, I expect little to no change in how
groups are funded. For many years now, most of the 400 plus
organizations at UCLA have been content doing their work with
minimal to no funding from USAC. Should some organizations decide
to increase their funding request, USAC will continue to evaluate
each activity based on strict, objective criteria.

In sum, funding policy should follow these three principles:

1. Fund all activities that that are consistent with the
university’s educational mission.

2. Maintain the historical role of student governments in
allocating fee funds.

3. Retain the viewpoint-neutrality system while remembering the
following. No funding decision can be based upon the views of the
group; funding may not be solely contingent upon demonstrating
majority support; funding levels may be significantly different for
different groups, but differences cannot be because of the views
expressed by any of the groups.

These principles for interpreting the Southworth decision have
been approved by the California Legislative Council, the legal
department for the California State Legislature. They are common
sense principles that best sum up the letter and spirit of the U.S.
Supreme Court’s historic decision.

The scenario put forth by the Daily Bruin Editorial Board is
indeed scary, but fortunately, by following this strong,
constitutional framework laid out by the California Legislative
Council, we can prevent these scenarios from occurring and
encourage the marketplace of idea to continue to flourish at
UCLA.

I understand the initial confusion this issue can cause,
especially with some statements made by the USAC president and the
Facilities Commissioner in the Daily Bruin article “Amendment widens
fund eligibility to more groups“ (News, Jan. 18). I am
confident, however, that they and other students who may have
questions will take the time to investigate thoroughly the
implications of the Southward case as to avoid further
misunderstanding.

The Legislative Council’s interpretation of Southworth
verifies that Southworth is about improving the process for all
student groups who want to add to the educational experience of the
university and not about fixing the outcome. I encourage all
students who are interested to come talk with us and/or attend our
weekly USAC meetings, which are held every Tuesday at 7 pm.