With colleges scrambling to pass resolutions in response to Herrick v. Warren College Student Council, one can’t help but re-evaluate Earl Warren College and its choice to stand alone in attempting to deny the Asian-Pacific Islander Student Alliance funding.
The controversy surrounding the case, in which Warren Freshman Senator Matt Herrick sought to halt Warren’s allocating $150 of the APSA’s 11th-annual high school conference, draws to the forefront the issue of colleges financing events that do not directly benefit itss students. And while the Warren College Judicial Board correctly ruled in favor of WCSC, Herrick’s case brought some much needed scrutiny specifically to Warren College’s funding practices. The case underscores both the arbitrary nature of Warren’s funding process and the need to reform its financial bylaws.
A member of the Student Affirmative Action Committee, APSA is a campuswide organization. WCSC receives thousands of dollars in funding from its students WCSC financial bylaws are meant to protect their rights. However, it’s inevitable that Warren programs benefit other UCSD students as well. Black Hall, an apartment complex located in Warren, is almost entirely dedicated to all-campus housing, and its community shares in all the same programs and events as Warren students. Resident advisors and staff in the Warren Office of Residential Life aren’t necessarily from Warren College, but benefit from and are in charge of vast college resources. Since students from all across campus have contributed in part to Warren College and benefited in turn, allowances should be made when funding reaches past students who are obviously Warrenites. A campus as partitioned as UCSD should not focus on the mere label assigned on college applications, but instead recall that UCSD is a community where resources should be put to work where they are needed most.
Many other worthwhile programs funded by WCSC are also of little direct benefit to Warren students as a whole. For example, Warren’s recent funding allocation to allow the UCSD Mock Trial team to participate in a regional competition benefits only a minority of Warren students involved in this all-campus organization. However, like the APSA conference, the event greatly benefits the students who participate, allowing those members to reach out to high school students or stimulate their minds through competition. This provides just as much for students as barbecues and dances, regardless of college affiliation. The opportunity to serve and interact with the community should actually be viewed as a much-needed privilege, and an experience of more profound and impactful than a mere barbecue. What better way to help Warren students, or any students for that matter, than to educate their very characters? After all, these are our future leaders and teachers.
While the Judicial Board ultimately rejected Herrick’s case, his initiative did help raise the question of Warren’s funding — an issue that has been swept under the carpet for too long. Unfortunately, the question broached during Herrick v. WCSC was not new. In the very first meeting of the 2004-05 school year, a councilmember inquired about the limitations imposed by WCSC regarding funding, as financial bylaws were suspended the previous year on a regular basis to allow the council to sponsor external events. Revising Warren’s ambiguous financial bylaws could have prevented much of the hassle the council faced.
Herrick v. WCSC isn’t the only problem the council has had with funding in recent years. Since it is the only college without funding caps, Warren has alternately been accused of over- and under-funding events and programs. This year, WCSC has struggled to achieve an appropriate level of expenditure, an especially delicate matter given the passage of last year’s $4/quarter student activity fee referendum.
One example of Warren’s inadequate funding mechanism is its lack of adequate representation. A large number of councilmembers — both appointed and elected — are Earl Warren residents. Earlier this quarter, Warren Student Activities Coordinator Brian Willess spoke at a WCSC meeting regarding the granting of funding requests disproportionately in favor of events benefiting on-campus students versus commuters, despite the latter group being responsible for approximately 76 percent of referendum-mandated WCSC income.
Citing the veto of a commuter barbecue and the passage of larger-scale residential programs, Willess reminded the council to keep all parts of the Warren community in consideration. Although steps have been taken to remedy this through the initialization of a Warren Transfer Commuter Commission, an event such as the APSA-sponsored high school conference is unfortunately exactly the type of event that would not specifically benefit on-campus Warren students.
Compared to the WCSC’s income of $64,979 — including over $3,000 pledged to APSA-like external activities — the fuss generated over a comparatively small amount of funds seems downright silly. Instead of seeing this as a slight to outreach programming, we should commend the system for allowing a single student to speak up and ask hard questions about funding allocation. Right or wrong, Herrick was able to break the monotony of easy, politically correct head-nodding, bringing the letter of the law to attention. As a result, Warren can now reform its bylaws accordingly or adjust its policy in the future. And while the Judicial Board may have sided with WCSC, the new focus on college constitutions and bylaws will hopefully cause students all over campus to re-evaluate some of the core issues of their colleges.
Former Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren once said, “It is the spirit and not the form of the law that keeps justice alive,” and in this case, it is the purpose of WCSC, as well as other student councils across UCSD, to aid not just one group of students, but all.
