The Student Services Finance Committee decided to deny student-segregated fee eligibility to the student veterans' group Vets for Vets by a narrow 4-5-1 vote Monday night.

Vets for Vets has been on campus for more than 30 years, providing students currently or previously involved in the military with information about receiving financial aid and otherwise offering guidance. SSFC deemed the group eligible in 2004 for the 2005-06 and 2006-07 school years and granted the group an annual budget of about $32,000 — slightly less than one percent of the entire General Student Services Fund.

The organization has been funded by student-segregated fees since the early 1990s and was supported by the university even earlier.

But SSFC decided this year that the group doesn't meet one of the eligibility requirements set forth in the Associated Students of Madison bylaws: Vets for Vets' governing documents don't define the organization as accessible to all University of Wisconsin students.

SSFC has already denied two groups' eligibility who previously received GSSF monies and even reversed one of its own decisions that initially denied yet another organization. It's clear the committee doesn't know what to do with itself.

And the ASM bylaws are partially to blame. The bylaws say the following of student groups' accessibility:

All students must be able to participate in the organization/program and/or access to the services they provide.

SSFC members are left to interpret that statement and do so differently each year. This year's crop of committee members is taking a stricter approach than in years past, and a longstanding student group has been blindsided by a decision no one saw coming because of it.

SSFC must define accessibility in clear terms and inform all student groups that their bylaws must conform to that definition in order to be eligible for funds. To leave such an important issue up in the air leaves room for longwinded arguments about interpretation and semantics rather than whether a group actually makes the cut.

It's a shame that a student group that has long been considered accessible and provides a clear benefit to UW students was deemed ineligible due to the lack of a documented standard.