Under Frozen Funds, Divided We Stand

Stefany Chen/Guardian

Two weeks after A.S. President Utsav Gupta panicked under pressure and froze media-org funding campuswide, all he’s got to show in the name of progress is an ominously divided committee, a lot of angry students and a fat lawsuit in the works.

We saw the shitstorm on the horizon the second Gupta’s rushed decision hit our inboxes, announcing he would cut the A.S. umbilical to all student newspapers until there was some way to guarantee they wouldn’t harm the campus climate.

What he should have known, of course, is that any sudden executive restriction targeting a bunch of righteous journalists is bound to lead to a First Amendment showdown.

But through Gupta’s rose-tinted glasses, a momentary hold seemed the perfect way to instigate a civilized discussion about whether we wanted our student fees going to any and all publications — even those that promote hate speech. He saw that black students were enraged to be funding something that degraded them, and wanted to do what was right. He also knew that — of the 14 print-media orgs that rely on the A.S. Council for funding — only the Left Coast Post, the California Review and the Koala were scheduled to publish a third issue by the end of Winter Quarter, and the Week Seven deadline for any last-minute requests had already come and gone.

So, given the increasingly toxic campus climate, Gupta accepted what he thought to be minimal consequences: Essentially only one (conservative) paper would be silenced — as the Koala would surely print anyway, on alternative funds — and any publications that wanted to print issues covering the controversy could put in the extra legwork to seek sponsors, or pull out leftover funds from their bank accounts.

Or so he thought. In fact, when California Review Editor in Chief Alec Weisman tried to use the last $260 in his account to publish an issue last week, he was shot down by A.S. Fund Manager Suzy Valenzuela, who cited an e-mail from A.S. Vice President of Finance and Resources Peter Benesch that said under the freeze, “any funds allocated in previous quarters can no longer be spent or accessed.”

Somehow, our once-popular leader failed to recognize that — once he flapped his wings and revealed his gross executive ability to freeze funds — people would cry “King Gupta,” no matter how low-impact the freeze. In addition, he has unintentionally turned the media orgs who don’t want to pay the price for the Koala’s televised racial slur against students who were hurt and angered by it — all while the Koala sits back, fanning the flames on the sidelines with their brand-new issue.

Indeed, the most disturbing part about Gupta’s decision was his ability to make it: The A.S. Council Standing Rules pretty much condone dictatorship when things get gray. As Title II puts it, when “a situation arises that is not provided for in the rules of the Associated Students, the President has broad authority to make any decision that is consistent with the spirit of the rules.” Few A.S. presidents have shocked us with such raw authoritative action in the past, so Gupta’s drastic choice to intervene — no matter how divinely it was meant to serve our Principles of Community — revealed the true control the council has over freedoms of student-funded press. It’s a control that may not hold up if challenged in the court of law.

Utsav must now answer to the two student groups he pitted against one another, with nothing but a committee full of opinionated media-org representatives and councilmembers to come up with a solution. And both sides do have a right to be angry. Though many orgs affected by the freeze have sympathized with the Black Student Union, they can’t be expected to relinquish their journalistic passion to the cause, and sacrifice their (and the Koala’s) First Amendment rights — which are protected by precedent of funding, when applied to student-government situations. At the same time, offended students don’t necessarily want to sit back and watch their fees feed the Koala’s spew of racist jokes just so Weisman can publish more singleminded arguments against affirmative action.

But there’s no legal way to make both sides happy. That is, there’s no legal way to fund all media orgs freely while excluding the Koala, which is — news flash — what the council has been trying to do all quarter.

In response, Benesch is touting a funding system that might just throw our fellow publications into the general student-org melting pot — allowing the council to pick apart a publication’s purpose and content, a notoriously lengthy process, before throwing it a bone. It might be momentarily satisfying to defund the havoc-wreakers at the Koala, but they’re so dedicated to offending everyone that they’ll keep publishing no matter what. What’s on the line, however, are weaker-willed newspapers with controversial content who may not have the time or patience to withstand future councilmembers’ attempts to guide their voice.

This board cannot condone content review for all campus media in the name of withholding 30 cents per quarter from the Koala’s beer fund, and wouldn’t want to see the encouraging environment for diverse student media on this campus sucked dry by a convoluted funding process.

Not to mention, all of these hypothetical situations put forward by the anti-Koala A.S. Council do not provide equal opportunity to express one’s views. We’re not lawyers, but a history of intent to defund the Koala based on content is enough to suggest, if taken to court, that any changes to the format of media-org funding was a violation of the First Amendment.

Who’s to say? Both the Koala and A.S. Council apparently have lawyers who guarantee they’re in the clear. But we truly hope Gupta can realize he’s created a monster and humbly end the freeze as soon as possible. Choose your battles, man.

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