As students break in the new academic year and legislation gains momentum, concern to remain neutral is always in the back of Student Services Finance Committee representatives’ minds.
In 2000, former UW-Madison student Scott Harold Southworth filed a lawsuit against the Board of Regents, stating that an extracurricular student fee violated his first amendment rights. In a unanimous Supreme Court decision, they voted in favor of Southworth, and viewpoint neutrality was created.
“Viewpoint neutrality is essential to ensuring that student groups — no matter their ideological, social, or political beliefs or opinions — are given the equal opportunity to access student appropriated funds,” said Student Judiciary Chief Justice Tom Summerwill.
Remaining viewpoint neutral means all funding decisions are not based on the decision of the group or that no organization can be defunded due to an individual’s point of view. This only covers fiscal responsibility and the level of services provided.
This does not guarantee all organizations will receive the same amount of funding, but it does protect students by ensuring every voice is heard and the final vote is justified.
At the start of every academic year, the SSFC analyzes the budget eligibility of prominent student organizations, such as Promoting Awareness Victim Empowerment and Wunk Sheek.
“Within the Student Judiciary, one of our paramount functions is to ensure that bodies with ASM fulfill the standards of viewpoint neutrality in their own decision making and allocations,” Summerwill said.
Last year, The Daily Cardinal found that the five underrepresented racial, ethnic and religious organizations that applied for General Student Services Fund money had larger budget cuts on average than other groups. Eighteen student organizations requested funding for the next school year.
Questions of bias circulated around the perception of SSFC as a “white, colonial space” that favored larger student organizations, leaving underrepresented organizations concerned they were getting inadequate funds.
However, this year SSFC remains active in returning trust to student government bodies.
“ASM has a strong system of checks and balances which holds us accountable to upholding our own bylaws, including VPN,” said SSFC Chair Jeremy Swanson.
This year, they granted Wunk Sheek, PAVE and Atheists, Humanists, and Agnostics funds unanimously.
“To do this efficiently, fairly and legally, we need to remove our own implicit biases from the equation and focus solely on creating the broadest marketplace of ideas as possible,” Swanson said. “That is why viewpoint neutrality is essential.”
Nina Bertelsen and Sonya Chechik contributed to this report.
