The Multicultural Student Coalition (MCSC) began in the fall of 1999 with the intended purpose of promoting diversity education throughout the campus community. To that end, the MCSC was approved for approximately $80,000 in funding for the next year. Since 1999, SSFC has given the MCSC more than $700,000 of student tax dollars. Today the MCSC comes before the SSFC requesting eligibility for continued funding.

Diversity education needs to be conducted in a manner that is welcoming for all students, regardless of skin color, ideology or religion. Diversity of ideas is a bedrock of this university and should be a foundation for all educational experiences on this campus.

The MCSC fails both of these marks.

We are not na�ve enough to think this amount of money, or any amount of money for that matter, will solve all diversity issues on this campus. But we do believe that there must be some progress and some sign of a coherent service being provided that is beneficial and educational to students after receiving large amounts of funding for the past three years.

The MCSC is in the middle of their M-ONE month, a month that the MCSC has geared solely toward students of color. Little advertising has been done to the campus community at large, and what the MCSC does to directly benefit students on campus outside of September is beyond our grasp.

Even sadder is the idea that one cannot disagree with the MCSC without being prepared to face their highly-funded wrath. Last year, a few rational members of the SSFC questioned their funding request, along with many other organizations. In the Mad Observer, published by the MCSC, these students were attacked and labeled “a reckless mob of white students (who) decided to unleash white supremacy on the SSFC process.”

Besides behaving as poor journalists, by attacking individuals and groups of students without any specific claims, the MCSC is also sending a message that neither white students, nor those who disagree with their outrageously large budget, are welcome within their ranks.

The MCSC makes the claim that the Mad Observeris necessary because of poor relations with the campus newspapers. To this we reassert: our pages are open and we welcome guest editorials and letters to the editor and frequently publish these letters when space permits.

Last year alone, the MCSC was given more than $500,000 to use to provide a service, yet if you ask the average student what is the Multicultural Student Coalition and what do they do, you will be met with a blank stare. For $500,000, every single student should be able to recognize what MCSC is and what service it provides on campus.

We hope SSFC will take tonight’s hearing seriously and not simply pay lip service to this process, as many students expect they will. There is no way to justify that the MCSC meets SSFC’s basic eligibility criteria.