Chancellor Wiley questioned the entire $147,000 budget proposal of the UW Roman Catholic Foundation last week. It is only the second time in 13 years the chancellor has returned budgets to ASM for reconsideration.
Wiley's first objection to funding UWRCF is a mere triviality. He says they should not receive funding because UWRCF is not a registered student organization. However, the Student Services Finance Committee of ASM has not required organizations seeking funding to be registered since bylaws were changed in 2003.
When groups came before SSFC for funding, whether they were a registered student organization was not even an issue, according to SSFC member Tim Schulz. It is arbitrary and unfair to punish UWRCF for failing to accomplish something that was never required.
We are happy to see Wiley will grant the organization a one-year waiver to become a registered organization. On the other hand, whether an organization is registered should not be a determining factor in funding. It is disappointing that Wiley is forcing ASM to change bylaws with minimal student input.
More importantly, Wiley was not sure whether portions of the UWRCF budget could receive funding because of their religious temperament. Of course, anything UWRCF does is going to be religious—Catholicism is a religion, after all.
However, to not fund an organization simply because of its viewpoint, besides being against the practice of viewpoint neutrality\ and the Southworth decision, would mean almost no organization would get any funding.
All student groups are inherently slanted toward a particular view because people form them with common interests or beliefs. If UWRCF cannot be funded, then LGBT groups cannot be funded. In the end, Wiley's precious diversity will suffer.
We hope in the future Chancellor Wiley will let students decide how student groups are funded instead of trying to overrule them. It is our money being spent.
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