Less than a month ago, Student Senate made changes to its Finance Commission Bylaws because of last year’s controversy over The Flip Side’s former ideological affiliation with the Progressive Student Association.
Now UW-Madison, which already experienced a lawsuit in 1996 with regards to such an issue, is under fire once again.
U.S. Rep. Mark Green, R-Wisconsin, sent a letter to UW-Madison Chancellor John Wiley April 20 expressing his concern over an alleged report of university administration working to persuade the Associated Students of Madison to cut funding to the University of Wisconsin Roman Catholic Foundation.
In his letter, Green cites a series of articles in the Badger Herald that reported an almost eight-month-long debate over the funding of the group and mentions that UWRCF had received funding in the past.
“I implore you to reverse what appears to be your discriminatory prejudice against … the UWRCF or other religiously-affiliated organization,” he states.
According to a March 29, 2001 article in The Spectator, three UW-Madison law students filed a lawsuit against the Board of Regents stating that allocating mandatory student fees to groups with ideological beliefs violated their right to freedom of speech.
In 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the existence of a mandatory student fee system was constitutional as long the governing body wasn’t allocating funds based on the ideological beliefs of organizations.
In a letter to ASM’s Student Services Finance Committee, Wiley states UWRCF could not receive funding because it was not a recognized student organization – a requirement that is specified in the ASM Bylaws – and that funding the organization would mean funding activities, personnel and printing related to religion.
“State monies cannot be used to support religious activities, per the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,” Wiley states in the letter.
Conversely, Green states in his letter to Wiley, that denying funding because of the Establishment Clause is in itself a violation of the 7th U.S. Court of Appeals ruling in the 2000 case involving Madison.
“This appears to be in clear violation of the viewpoint-neutrality rules in this area with which we have all become very familiar.”
As the conflict continues in Madison, members of UW-Eau Claire’s Student Senate said they feel confident that such a situation would not arise at Eau Claire.
“I believe if Eau Claire’s policy were to be called into question, it would be safe in the legal strata,” said Senator Aaron Olson, who assisted former Finance Commission Director Ray French in updating the commission’s bylaws this summer.
