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Yes, we know it’s legal. Yes, we know the concept of viewpoint neutrality is not implicated by this matter. Yes, we’re sure Elizabeth Wrigley-Field and her ideological allies on the Associated Students of Madison Student Council could rattle off ASM’s long history of taking political positions on behalf of the student body. We recall how fervently advocates for Brian Benford, during his failed run for ASM chair, cited his “credentials” as a ’70s-era activist. But this sacred history aside, we are unpersuaded that ASM has a moral duty to endorse the motivations of any political faction, movement or protest unless it directly pertains to the university.
On Sept. 16, 2009, the ASM Student Council voted 18-0-5 to, according to a press release, “publicly voice its support of the National Equality March scheduled for October 11 in Washington D.C.” This is a march for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights, clearly modeled after the famous March on Washington of 1962.
ASM has no business registering its support for this march. We would say the same thing about any march, for or against the cause in question. It is easy to forget, as students at the University of Wisconsin, that what seems politically black-and-white to student leaders has many shades of gray for the average student. And while our students and broader culture mull over an issue as agonizingly complex as same-sex marriage — an issue that immediately implicates religion, culture, moral conceptions and constitutional interpretation — the members of Student Council have an ethical responsibility to withhold public statement. It is bad enough that a conservative student could easily get the impression that our university administration has formally endorsed the full gamut of same-sex rights proposed by activists, and that they are expected to follow suit. Our Student Council should not send a message to students that if they disagree with their leadership on a specific social issue, they need not apply.
All of this, of course, follows from the efforts of Ms. Wrigley-Field and a coalition of LGBT-related and leftist groups to gain full ASM funding for their sojourn to the National Equality March. Student organizations sponsoring these efforts include the LGBT Campus Center, Ten Percent Society of UW Madison, the International Socialist Organization, Queer Student Alliance of UW-Madison, and other non-student groups that would not be eligible for travel or event grants. This epic struggle for funding begins with a travel grant for $960, allocated by the Finance Committee, that Ms. Wrigley-Field and ISO deemed to be wholly inadequate to their needs for the protest. One might argue $960 is a reasonable amount for a travel grant to Washington, D.C. So Wrigley-Field is now proposing the ASM Student Council fund all transportation expenses — for an as yet unspecified number of people — for the Oct. 11 march. Ms. Wrigley-Field’s ability to advocate for her demands should not be understated; on a bad day, with the right amount of council vulnerability, she could prevail on this one.
It has been a long time since The Badger Herald has been this politically incorrect, but in the words of Thomas Paine, “A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right.” And it is indeed wrong for ASM to grant any funding to events that violate their standards for granting funds, even if the events in question support majority-held political positions.
There are eight criteria that a travel grant must fulfill to be approved by the Finance Committee. Two of these criteria are clearly not met by the National Equality March. First, petitioners must “clearly describe how the trip is central to the purpose of the RSO and how the trip helps the RSO accomplish its goals.” It is unclear to us how any credible allocators of student grants could automatically assume that a march through Washington, D.C., would have any more than a cursory impact on LGBT equality, especially since such marches are notorious for bundling together countless other radical causes and characters which — to put it bluntly — do the LGBT rights movement no favors. The truth is protest and marches provide emotional benefit to the participants, strengthening their solidarity and hope for a better world. They do not, as a general rule, accomplish any specific goal. And assisting in “[accomplishing] a specific goal” is a prerequisite for receiving travel grant funding.
The second problematic criterion is that “The travel will substantially benefit students other than the traveler.” And here again the National Equality March fails the test. The only item ISO could offer the Finance Committee to substantiate this claim was the assurance the group would bring back photos and videos from the march to show the campus. We fail entirely to see what substantial benefit non-attending UW students will reap if a coalition of UW students attends the march. The march will happen, UW students or no UW students. The march will provide no more visibility for LGBT rights if a few more folks from UW come along for the ride too. The reasoning that students would substantially benefit if the march in any way brought increased attention to LGBT equality movements is far too abstract to merit the usage of ASM funds. (It would be another matter entirely if, for example, student representatives were going to Washington to lobby congresspersons directly for federal funding of LGBT student services on college campuses.)
Even $960 is too much money to throw at this affair, then. For Ms. Wrigley-Field to attempt to bully ASM into providing thousands of dollars of additional funding nearly lapses into self-satire. We are ironically heartened by the (nonetheless unwarranted) statement of “support” by ASM for the National Equality March, since it seems at least to indicate reticence to grant any more than the $960 already allocated by the Finance Committee. But we are troubled by the precedent Ms. Wrigley-Field is setting. By even asking for this money, she seems to suggest anyone not funded fully by the Finance Committee can simply rush to Student Council to fill the rest of their coffers — a bureaucratic nightmare if ever we envisioned one. At any rate, let us be very clear: It is not the job of the Finance Committee, nor of the ASM Student Council, to fund student travel 850 miles away, for a march whose substantive benefit to the student body remains as unclear as the motives of those who champion it.
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Once again, it’s late September and the lights are out at Wrigley-Field.
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This is ridiculous.
Wrigley Field has every right to ask for, demand and bully ASM as much as she wants. If it’s true that this trip doesn’t meet ASM’s funding criteria, it’s their job to turn it down. This article’s emphasis on Wrigley Field’s tactics is pointless. ASM needs to set standards and uphold them.
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Exactly what I was going to say.
This article is smoking with bias and clearly aims to personally attack Ms. Wrigley-Field for proposing legislation that thousands of people are affected by. Yes, the segregated fees are designated for broad University purposes, similarly, the National Guard was designated for national protection when it was sent into Little Rock Arkansas to help nine students attend an integrated public school. I realize the issues are far different, however Equality is the basis of both situations.
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im so glad we elected the badger herald to represent us and serve as our collective voices in determining what should and should not be supported. oh wait…
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Wouldn’t it be ironic if, by bringing this matter before the council, the result of Wrigley-Field’s efforts was the council deciding to rescind funding altogether.
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This is students’ money we’re talking about. Why should the whole student body pay for a small group of students to go anywhere anyway? I can’t think of one reason.
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@9:14 The group already got $960 through the normal funding process. This is her attempt to subvert the normal funding process for student groups by trying to use the ASM internal budget to fund a request by a student group.
@11:52 First of all they already got money. Secondly, your seg fees pay for small groups of students to travel places pretty regularly. In that respect this is not something new.
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youd think a grad student had more things to do with their lives than play undergrad politics wouldntya? get a life, get a phd, do something besides play 18 year old activist, WF
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Representative Wrigley-Field is taking advantage of her elected position and seeking additional funding for a group she is currently involved in. This is a conflict of interest and if each member of Student Council sought additional funding from the ASM internal budget for groups they were involved in, there would be no funding left to operate the student government. There is a finance committee for a reason, and if so many groups are sending people on this equality march, each group should have applied for a travel grant, plain and simple.
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It is obvious to me the editorial board it utterly heartless. And just like Kanye, they are pitiful. They’re jerks that people used to defend- “hey, they’re not THAT bad!” Until that one day they spoke without thinking and then suddenly it was obvious how dumb they’ve been all along. When we say human rights issue, and you roll your eyes - there is some sort of disconnect happening in your brain.
Before I forget (like you all apparently did)
The famous March on Washington was clearly in 1963. Not 1962.
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The ASM is supporting the CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS of many UW Madison students.
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While I don’t agree with the author, he has a point. From several accounts of what happened that evening, Miss Wrigley-Field was incredibly without plan of action or even a complete number she needed funded. Writing a blank check to an organization that, while I agree with what they are going to rally for, is going without proper channels or even a plan is wrong. And I think if the College Republicans asked for a blank check to send a tiny minority of students to Washington to be in an abortion rally, we’d see outrage as well.
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Perhaps ASM should support concealed carry in Wisconsin (2nd amendment is only one away from the first amendment, and there is a large group of students who are interested/would be affected)
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Thoreau once said, “How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.� Frankly, this quote applies to whoever wrote the editorial entitled “ASM, it’s not your place”.
There are many things the author/s (who are interestingly enough, not mentioned) failed to address in their research, or lack of it. The first being the fact that over 50 student body presidents around the country have endorsed this march already, among them being leaders from UCLA, Princeton, Yale, Cornell, Tufts, Stanford, University Chicago, University Minnesota, and American; need I go on?
Second, the author/s address this issue as political, and while it’s hard to argue that it isn’t, it is certainly far more than a political issue. The question of LGBT rights in America is a question of equality; something that goes far beyond normal politics. Certain rights are inherent for all individuals, and when some rights apply to some individuals, and not others, then there is a problem. This indicates injustice and oppression.
Something I find interesting is another point made by the author/s of this article. They attack the grant funding for the trip because it fails to meet two criteria imposed by the ASM, one being how the trip will help accomplish a specific mission. The mission of this trip is to begin a grass roots organizing campaign to end LGBT injustice. The mission of this trip is to raise visibility for LGBT rights. Interestingly enough, the author/s of this article have done just that; by publicizing this march they have raised an issue surrounding LGBT rights and have thus fulfilled at least something a little more than providing “emotional benefit to participants and a hope for a better world”. Because the author/s have addressed this issue they are helping the march participants complete their goal of raising awareness, imagine that.
Lastly, I can’t see what would better represent the student body as a whole. This movement affects EVERY person in the United States whether that person is Gay, Lesbian, Bi, Trans, Inter-sex, or Straight.
How you ask… here’s how: after reading Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” in my class, I realized how much it applies to this movement. King said, “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”. So essentially those who do not fight the injustices in the world, are prolonging them.
Just as the author/s of this article have proclaimed ASM support unwise, so too did King’s peers deem support for the Civil Rights Movement as “unwise and untimely”, and so too did King reply, “justice too long delayed is justice denied”.
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@11:56: 1) This author is not a “he”. It’s the editorial board. 2) Who said anything about a blank check? They gave $960! THe SSFC budget is in the millions!
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“From several accounts of what happened that evening, Miss Wrigley-Field was incredibly without plan of action or even a complete number she needed funded.”
That’s exactly right. Even if Student Council had wanted to fund the trip, I don’t see how they could have. The legislation was so poorly thought out and worded that there was just no way it could have been passed. In fact if it was passed, I honestly don’t know if it could have been interpreted to actually have altered the ASM internal budget to provide any money.
~Someone who was there and read the legislation
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Wrigley-Field offered a “compromise” of instead of an unlimited number of students, a good cap might be 500 students. The estimated cost per student was $88, so Wrigley-Field’s plan would have cost $44,000.
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Whose butt did the editorial board pull this from? “Our Student Council should not send a message to students that if they disagree with their leadership on a specific social issue, they need not apply.”
It’s intellectual laziness to say “I’m not a liberal so ASM won’t let me represent other students and our views, so why bother running?”
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“Need not apply” doesn’t mean to ASM’s actual Student Council. It means to the University. Every UW student is a member of ASM, and so for them to make a statement on behalf of the 41,000 students for an political issue they have no business bringing up (since it doesn’t pertain to the services and issues they’re meant to address as a student government), is irresponsible.
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@10:14 is exactly right. There is no way that the money can be granted without a concrete proposal with specific numbers and line items. Otherwise it won’t even be considered.
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Reminds me of Harry Carey: ‘HOLY COW!’