USAC funding allocations suggests political bias

The battle over the allocation of your student fees just keeps
getting uglier. Every quarter, students at the various University
of California campuses are charged thousands of dollars in student
fees, monies that will later be divvied up between the various
administrative proceedings and student services in a fair manner.
If only it were that easy.

Let’s start with the extremely “dumbed-down”
version of how things work on campus. Our student government, the
Undergraduate Students Association Council, receives a portion of
these funds, $233,058.69 to be exact, that they allocate to the
various offices and officially recognized student organizations,
including groups such as the Interfraternity Council and African
Student Union.

It sounds simple enough ““ only it gets messier from here.
After wading through the endless numbers of the UC’s Office
of the President’s regulations and guidelines regarding
student governments and their funding allocation procedures, the
truth emerges.

Current university guidelines provide that all registered
student organizations can receive student government funding
provided the selection process is conducted on a
“viewpoint-neutral basis.”

The UC Guidelines for Funding Registered Campus Organizations
states,”all allocations from compulsory student fees to
support registered campus organizations and related programmatic
activities must be content-neutral in nature and made for reasons
other than the viewpoints expressed. That is, any differences in
treatment provided to competing organizations (such as any student
groups) and related programmatic activities must be based upon
considerations which do not include approval or disapproval of
content or viewpoint.”

However, this year’s base budget funding allocations were
closed to Independent Student Organizations ““ groups that
could have strong political affiliations (Bruin Democrats or Bruin
Republicans) or religious ties (UCLA Bible Study).

These groups, despite university policies designed to open the
process, were denied the right to even apply for base budget
funding from the student government portion of student fees.

While UC guidelines do not prohibit student fees from being used
to fund the political activities of student groups, they do
prohibit UC entities, including student governments, from directly
spending student fees on political campaigns.

The UC states, “an allocation “¦ for purposes
unrelated to the University’s legitimate purposes (for
example, an allocation specifically earmarked for direct financial
support of a particular political party, candidate or election
campaign) would be impermissible.

This raises questions regarding entities such as the University
of California Students Association, a governing body consisting of
external vice presidents from all the UC’s and affiliates
from across the UC system. UCSA makes collective decisions on
behalf of all UC students and is funded by student fees collected
by student governments ““ anywhere from $0.75 to $2.75 per
student in the UC system according to its Web site.

Despite the fact that UC guidelines clearly prohibit political
endorsements, UCSA’s name can be found on the black and
yellow “No On Prop 54″ buttons dispersed around
campus.

Is it within UCSA’s jurisdiction to fund such propaganda,
especially when some student organizations, such as independent
student ones at UCLA, are blocked from receiving funding to run
counter campaigns which could provide a balance in viewpoint? The
answer is no, because it is not allowed, nor is it fair.

Here at UCLA, USAC must open the funding application process to
all students and must allocate funding on a content-neutral basis.
By doing so, groups will be able to fund educational endeavors and
bring a balance in opinion to campus. Secondly, student governments
and UC entities such as UCSA, which are supposed to represent all
students, must follow UCOP guidelines and regulations and not
directly allocate funding to political campaigns.

As a result of such issues, students at the University of
California, Berkeley, have taken all of this to the next level, and
rightly so. Facing accusations and possible charges of directly
funding an anti-Prop 54 campaign, UCB is undergoing an
investigation of current funding practices of political campaigns
by its student government. Some students are going as far as
requesting a refund from their student government, and under
university policy, they have every right to do so. Good for
them.

Paganini is third-year geography and political science
student.