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The Daily OrangeMinority groups unsatisfied with lack of SA funding
By Maria Qualtere
Posted: 11/19/08, 1:40 AM EST Section: News
Members of minority student organizations said they feel the Student Association is restricting their voices by the little to no funding they received in SA's budget process Monday.
Celina Tousignant, president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, defines a minority as "anything from Latina students to Republican students, to LGBT students, any group of students that isn't the majority on campus."
Some members of groups denied funding said they believe that by not being able to host events specific to their beliefs, the concept of diversity is lost.
"Diversity goes beyond ethnicity, goes beyond students of color, or the traditional term of minority group," Tousignant said. "Diversity is thought, diversity is interest, and that is not being taken care of in these budget hearings."
This is the first time the National Association of Hispanic Journalists was awarded its requested funding for one of its submitted budgets. But Tousignant mentioned that La Voz, a Latina publication, was the only publication that did not receive funding from SA.
Sacha Forgenie, SA's comptroller and head of the Finance Board, said the board bases its decisions on the financial vision provided by the assembly. One component of this vision states that the Finance Board must seek to fund events that serve a large population of students.
"We look to see that the program does serve the majority of the campus as a whole, because everybody does pay the student fee," Forgenie said.
Tousignant said diversity cannot be achieved if the Finance Board is worried whether events only serve a specific audience.
"Most of these events being proposed by minority, cultural, ethnic organizations are trying to broaden their demographic," Tousignant said.
Nick Johnson, president of College Republicans, referred to this year's budget process as "a travesty." He said this is the first year his group was completely denied funding.
"It's sad that the liberal bias is that strong to have any or all of the student voice on the campus," Johnson said. "We're the only one who can bring large-scale conservative ideals to the campus, and we were shut out completely."
Celina Tousignant, president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, defines a minority as "anything from Latina students to Republican students, to LGBT students, any group of students that isn't the majority on campus."
Some members of groups denied funding said they believe that by not being able to host events specific to their beliefs, the concept of diversity is lost.
"Diversity goes beyond ethnicity, goes beyond students of color, or the traditional term of minority group," Tousignant said. "Diversity is thought, diversity is interest, and that is not being taken care of in these budget hearings."
This is the first time the National Association of Hispanic Journalists was awarded its requested funding for one of its submitted budgets. But Tousignant mentioned that La Voz, a Latina publication, was the only publication that did not receive funding from SA.
Sacha Forgenie, SA's comptroller and head of the Finance Board, said the board bases its decisions on the financial vision provided by the assembly. One component of this vision states that the Finance Board must seek to fund events that serve a large population of students.
"We look to see that the program does serve the majority of the campus as a whole, because everybody does pay the student fee," Forgenie said.
Tousignant said diversity cannot be achieved if the Finance Board is worried whether events only serve a specific audience.
"Most of these events being proposed by minority, cultural, ethnic organizations are trying to broaden their demographic," Tousignant said.
Nick Johnson, president of College Republicans, referred to this year's budget process as "a travesty." He said this is the first year his group was completely denied funding.
"It's sad that the liberal bias is that strong to have any or all of the student voice on the campus," Johnson said. "We're the only one who can bring large-scale conservative ideals to the campus, and we were shut out completely."
Viewing Comments 1 - 4 of 10
Of course
posted 11/19/08 @ 11:59 AM EST
Of course people are upset... the SA is a complete joke and everybody knows it. They all take themselves so seriously and yet none of them has an ounce of leadership ability in them. (Continued…)
Jill
posted 11/19/08 @ 3:45 PM EST
Republics are now minorities? Bullshit. They wanted over $40,000 to bring Karl Rove to SU! THAT would be the real travesty.
Kate763
Kate
posted 11/20/08 @ 5:15 AM EST
This was a great article, and thanks for writing about this issue. I'd really like to see another article, though, that delves into the real problems behind this mess. (Continued…)
Cuse77
posted 11/21/08 @ 10:51 AM EST
Tough Subject/topic Our school is no different from others in that there will always be a limited amount of resources being chased by too many organizations. (Continued…)
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