Seg fee policy is limiting students

Change will affect how organizations are funded

By: Brian Reisinger

Posted: 12/13/07

UW System President Kevin Reilly accepted a new UW System policy on student segregated fees recently, and, to be honest, the issue felt a little distant from Eau Claire.

We covered it in the pages of The Spectator, but found it difficult to connect the issue to our campus because the specifics of the policy don't apply here - yet.

When it's all said and done, though, there's one point that the student body should have picked up on: they did indeed lose power in the deal, at least in principle.

A little background is probably useful.

Student segregated fees are those the university collects from students that, in turn, student government helps dole out. Here on campus our Finance Commission - composed of students inside and outside of Student Senate- just finished hearing presentations by a variety of groups. The commission's final decisions will go to members of Student Senate, who can decide to amend them as they see fit.

The new policy is a consolidation of two other policies that the System decided to review. It prohibits student groups from using student fees to rent off-campus or hire non-university employees without their chancellor's consent.

However you want to look at it, this is indeed a limit on student power, and one that seems unnecessary.

The debate itself - over whether off-campus rentals and non-university employees are a good use of student money - is probably legitimate. But it's one that should arise in the chambers of student government as they consider organizations' proposals, not the office of the chancellor.

Student Senate President Ray French has been quick to point out in interviews with The Spectator that this policy doesn't restrict the allocation of fees - just what groups spend it on.

What's more, since student groups at Eau Claire don't use money for off-campus rentals or non-university employees, it doesn't have any impact here, he has told The Spectator.

French is partially right in his reasoning, and he appears to have considered the policy in a thoughtful way.

But the fact is, administrators will now have more say over what student organizations can use their money for and, in that way, what student government will be able to give it out for.

So why the change?

System Senior Executive Vice President Donald Mash has said chancellors are responsible for all funds at their campuses, making this policy important.

"The statute provides for student involvement, but does not relieve the chancellors of their responsibility for fiscal oversight," Mash said at a Board of Regents meeting.

Is this to suggest, then, that before this policy, chancellors were somehow helpless while students went crazy with university money?

At Eau Claire, student members of the Finance Commission carefully consider what organizations would use their money for.

Administrators advise the commission on the range of their budget to prevent massive increases, and they attend deliberations. They remain respectful of student power and only offer themselves as a resource - but their presence in the process alone shows that there aren't going to be any surprises of consequence.

Take, for instance, a few years ago when Student Senate hesitated to give The Flip Side funding because it seemed to represent a liberal viewpoint. As the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education pointed out, this violated the legal standard of viewpoint neutrality; fees should go to groups regardless of ideology, not withheld because of it.

And university officials have since said on the record to The Spectator that they were watching the ill-advised decision and that it wouldn't have stood.

The controversy, it seems, was a rather small and moot point.

Controversies over student decisions have, to be frank, paled in comparison with some of those originating from the judgment of System administrators.

How about the time UW-Eau Claire prohibited an RA from holding Bible studies in his residence hall? Or, more related to student fees, the time outgoing UW-Madison Chancellor John Wiley denied funding to a Catholic group? Both instances drew lawsuits, public outrage and a reversal of administrators' decisions.

These controversies aren't linked to the issues the new policy addresses. But they are examples where administrators made decisions that, whether right or wrong, weren't the wisest from a public image standpoint.

We shouldn't assume, of course, that our own chancellor or other administrators will make bad decisions. But we shouldn't assume that our students will, either.

Whatever aspect of the fee process you want to focus on and whatever the true impetus for it was, this new policy is a limit on student voice.

In Madison, it's a limit on what student organizations can do with their money in the here and now. At Eau Claire it's a limit on what organizations can hope to do in the future.

When it comes to student use of student money, that's pretty much the same thing.