Chris KempLooking back on this semester, one cannot ignore a particular issue at UW-Eau Claire that has seen a large amount of coverage by both The Spectator and other local media outlets.
The funding of religious and seemingly politically partisan Service-Learning by differential tuition has now increasingly garnered national attention through the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.
This organization’s goal, according to its Web site, is “to defend and sustain individual rights at America’s increasingly repressive and partisan colleges and universities.” One of its most current endeavors is taking up the cause of political and religion-based Service-Learning at Eau Claire. And in the process FIRE has again brought funding of The Flip Side, Eau Claire’s opinion and news publication, by student segregated fees back into the forefront.
I am not in a position, nor would I wish, to challenge the important role such a publication serves on our campus and on others around the country. The Flip Side offers students a critical outlet to express opinions, regardless of the writers’ individual partisanship. But, under FIRE’s interpretation of the First Amendment, The Flip Side and The Spectator would be required to rely completely on advertising revenue for funding.
FIRE President David French said Student Senate’s proposed policy to not fund “particular ideological, religious or partisan viewpoints,” is contradictory to First Amendment rights.
“An opinion paper is a paper with viewpoints,” French said. “According to the literal language with the (Student Senate’s) limitation, The Flip Side would be unfundable.”
In addition, French said nearly every organization falls outside of FIRE’s definition of content neutrality. This definition, in itself, challenges the abililty for any campus publications to receive student fees, including The Spectator.
The first problem with this argument is the courts, in the 2000 Supreme Court case UW Board of Regents v. Southworth, said student fees could only be used to fund content-neutral organizations, which The Flip Side is, according to the university’s definition of content-neutrality. Therefore, FIRE should not be comparing funding of The Flip Side to political or religious Service-Learning bans, because The Flip Side can easily claim it does not represent one particular ideology, partisanship or religion.
While French argues content neutrality means Senate should disregard the viewpoints when deciding whether to fund an organization, such a general definition of the term would make any organization that asks for student fees fundable. It also suggests an all-or-none approach to funding student organizations. This is an unrealistic and scary proposition.
In addition, The Flip Side, much like the editorial and opinion pages that appear in The Spectator, accepts entries from students with any political background, no matter how popular those views expressed may be. This alone should define the term content neutral when considering the distribution of student fees.
In other words, content variety must replace the concept of content neutrality when it comes to campus media. Any other method of defining or dictating what can be published is an infringement of the First Amendment.
Interestingly, national publicly-supported media have had to defend similar accusations of non-neutrality recently. And, French told me, his personal opinion is that publicly-funded media are a result only of tradition. (This, however, is not necessarily the stance of FIRE.)
Just as the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is pushing for more content-neutral coverage on PBS, it seems such Student Senate guidelines would encourage but not force publications such as The Flip Side and The Spectator to seek more opinion
page neutrality.
However, I have faith Senate would never force such government-mandated limitations on campus speech because to do so would be unconstitutional.
The line between encouragement of neutrality and censorship is very fine, and to cross it is undoubtedly detrimental to free speech. It is therefore the job of The Flip Side and the editorial pages of The Spectator, as well as other student media groups, to prove neutrality on their own. Grouping these outlets with religious and political organizations, as FIRE is trying to do, is a backward and counter-productive way to encourage free speech.
If we are able to effectively demonstrate our desire to be a true outlet for the dissemination of all opinions on campus, we can then prove that, beyond a doubt, the service our publications provide for the student body is indispensable. And it is only that criteria that Student Senate should require of media organizations when distributing student dollars.
Pelleymounter is a senior print journalism and political science major and editorial editor of The Spectator. Pelley’s Perspective is a weekly column that appears every Thursday.
