CSP procedural reform necessary, constitutional

After a group of students, led by Andrew Jones, head of the
Bruin Republicans and a former Daily Bruin Viewpoint columnist,
registered the slate name Student Empowerment! as a student group
last week, the logic behind the student-group name registration
procedures has been called into question.

The Undergraduate Student Association Council met Tuesday to
propose that the process be revamped. But the council had its
suggestions met with reservation by Center for Student Programming
Director Berky Nelson, who cited potential First Amendment
complications if CSP tried to limit a student’s ability to
register a group.

Though Jones resigned the Student Empowerment! name Tuesday due
to severe backlash, many USAC members fear others will attempt to
beat long-established groups to the CSP office early next year and
stake claim to their name. Every student group on campus has to
re-register with the CSP annually; this policy only requires three
students be present. No method of confirming whether students
actually belong to a group exists, so any three students with
subversive motives can seriously disrupt a group’s identity
and organization. Even though Empowerment! is an established slate
on campus, it is not an officially recognized group; this loophole
allowed Jones to take the name.

Nelson’s argument against seriously revising the process
on the grounds that it may raise First Amendment questions is weak.
The problem of group name registration falls squarely on
Nelson’s shoulders. As the CSP’s director, it’s
his responsibility to stop consciously abusive practices and
disruption tactics from taking place in his office. The bureaucracy
and limited oversight accorded by the current registration
guidelines prevented the CSP from stopping Jones. Students should
not be able to waltz into the CSP and select any group name they
want, especially when those students are well known on campus for
not being part of the very groups they seek to register.

The First Amendment question surrounding this issue is
thoroughly ambiguous. But defaulting to inaction on ambiguous
matters means avoiding the problem, not solving it. Nelson worries
changing the policies might eventually get the state involved, but
perhaps that’s what is needed in this situation because the
campus certainly lacks answers. The First Amendment should not be
viewed as an absolute right: restrictions for it are abundant. Even
at UCLA, the only opportunity students have to exercise
audibly-amplified free speech is for one hour per day on Meyerhoff
Park ““ a small patch of grass outside Kerckhoff Hall.

Free speech in society is not an absolute right either ““
that’s why copyright, patents, libel and slander protections
exist. All are meant to prevent the stealing of others’ ideas
and the perpetration of false information. To say that creating new
procedures to aid in clearing up confusion and to prevent students
from consciously disrupting others from their own freedom of
expression is ludicrous at best.

The CSP needs to seriously review its processes after Internal
Vice President T.J. Cordero files his official complaint. And USAC
President David Dahle, the voice of undergraduate students, needs
to relentlessly advocate for CSP procedural reform if its
respectability is to be restored.