Well, they said it couldn't be done, but naysayers were proven wrong when the Associated Students of Madison approved a doubling of our segregated fees in a single year and, barring some intervention by the UW System Board of Regents, it will happen. Besides the usual budget increases, the Multicultural Student Coalition, an organization most famous for protesting against the freedom of speech (remember the David Horowitz debacle?), will receive the greatest share of segregated fees, a system established for encouraging free debate. We must ask the simple question of how this happened.
First, but not most important, is the abrogation of that obvious responsibility of cost cutting. Student organizations were allowed all sorts of money with few questions asked'a small budget cut for the UW Greens the only notable exception. In addition, ASM Student Council representatives passed a pay raise for themselves, and will now receive a significantly larger stipend. When it comes to formulating a solid budget, this year's Student Council and Student Services Finance Committee has failed.
There is still that elephant in the living room that must be addressed: MCSC and other viewpoint-associated student organizations. As any fan of U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., and the campaign finance reform argument knows, in forums for debate in which funds are distributed in a disparate manner, those with more money are favored to win.
When MCSC, an organization devoted to the viewpoint that diversity automatically equals a better educational experience, is fully and luxuriously funded down to $55,000 for office space, and a conservative, pro-business group like Students of Objectivism receives a mere $100 operations grant with no money for events, there is clearly a stacked deck. As a liberal who supports diversity, and more importantly, true diversity of thought, I must concede that ASM quashes debate, flagrantly discriminates against conservatives and infringes on the rights of students by forcing us to fund ideological groups with which we may disagree. Thomas Jefferson called such action the highest form of tyranny.
This was all inevitable, as an elected body cannot deal in viewpoint-associated matters with true neutrality. If ASM were to simply deal with concrete services for students such as bus passes, SAFEwalk, the Rape Crisis Center and perhaps 24-hour libraries so we can pull proper all-nighters, there could be a better educational environment at less cost, instead of a system of heated argument at every step and a new venue for campus tensions to escalate.
Most interesting is that these policies have been pursued in the name of a liberal goal: the improvement of our education. However, this cannot hold water when one takes into account that, by asking for higher seg fees, ASM and other student organizations have no moral authority when it comes that ultimate liberal goal of affordability. If students themselves demand that the cost of education increase for their pet causes, how can one argue against the state government doing the same thing on a larger scale?
It is a great irony that in spring 2001, when MCSC protested Horowitz's right to spout conservative claptrap, its members were at Bascom Hall, in front of a plaque bearing the following words from an 1894 report by the Regents: \Whatever may be the limitations which trammel inquiry elsewhere, we believe that the great state University of Wisconsin should ever encourage that continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which alone the truth can be found.""
This is an admirable sentiment, to be sure, but one not followed at all right now; our seg fee system as it stands is not about quality services nor the free sifting and winnowing, but about impositions by some groups over others.
