About a month ago, the UNC College Republicans submitted a funding request to the Finance Committee of Student Congress for a $20,000 grant to provide an honorarium for conservative commentator, Ann Coulter. After facing some criticism for the size of the request, CR Chairman Greg Steele agreed to a compromise whereby the CRs would receive a $15,000 grant and a $5000 loan from Congress.

Despite the fact that this request was totally within the normal bounds of funding requests, it was apparently too much for some in Congress. Steele said that he expected the event to draw at least 550 people (and possibly many more). However, some members of Congress still complained that the cost of the event was too high (approximately $27 per person).  Of course, the per person cost of the event could have been much lower if Congress was willing to appropriate an extra $1000 to the group to cover the costs of renting Memorial Hall (with a capacity of about 1500). Instead, members of the Young Democrats moved to cut the grant size to $5000, and the bill was quickly amended to add $10,000 to the fundraising/loan category. Given that the event was scheduled for September 20 (approximately three weeks later), expecting the CRs to raise $15,000 in such a short time span was unrealistic. However, the measure ($5000 grant and $15,000 loan) passed, by a vote of 10-6-6, with the six CRs in Congress abstaining in accordance with Congress’ ethical requirements

The ridiculousness of this “compromise” was evident to nearly everyone on campus (except the YDs apparently). Student Body President Mary Cooper vetoed the funding request saying, “Expecting the group to raise such a large dollar amount for a speaker mostly ex post facto is unrealistic and sets a precedent that I find to be unacceptable.” The YDs continued to complain that Coulter was too polarizing and didn’t contribute to the intellectual debate on campus, but Congress sustained the veto by a vote of 26-1-1. So, the CRs prepared to go before Congress again with a new request.

On September 20, the day Ann Coulter was originally supposed to speak, Steele and the CRs went before the Finance Committee with a new request. It reflected the compromise originally worked out between the group and the Finance Committee (a $15,000 grant and $5000 loan) and passed with one dissenting vote.

At the next meeting of Congress on September 27, the CRs again ran into stiff wall of liberal intolerance. Reiterating their complaints about how dumb Ann Coulter is and how expensive she is, the YDs led the charge against the funding request. Ignoring the efforts the CRs made to accommodate Congress’ concerns (including making tickets only available to students and agreeing not to submit another request for money in the spring), the body killed the request on a 6-8-13 vote.

As if this couldn’t get any better, there’s another wrinkle in the story. Today, the YDs submitted a request for $14,000 to bring in Naomi Wolf. Now, I consider myself fairly well-informed when it comes to American politics, but I had no idea who this person was until I Googled her name. She looks to be some sort of radical feminist who’s a part of the George-Bush-is-a-fascist parade.

This is ironic, first because the YDs (and many others) claimed that Ann Coulter was “too divisive” and not an intellectual. From what I can tell, this woman, who’s written all of two books, has very little to add in the way of intellectual debate and is merely a liberal flamethrower. I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe she’s sort of liberal Hayek, but based on my initial impressions, their choice in speaker is highly ironic.

Second, their request is nearly identical in size to the CRs’ request, yet the YDs predict that their speaker will affect roughly 80% fewer people than Ann Coulter. According to their request, they expect about 100 people to show up to this event, at a cost of $140 per person, making it roughly five times more expensive than the Coulter event. For all of you keeping track, the CRs have received exactly $0.00 from Congress this year.

The audacity of this request is breath-taking. After spending the last month condescendingly lecturing the CRs about not spending all of Congress’ money in one place, I certainly didn’t see this one coming. That they could spend a month criticizing the CRs for the size of the Coulter request, all while planning on submitting a similar request for their own speaker requires the willing suspension of disbelief. If the YDs were truly concerned about the size of the funding request, they would not have submitted a similarly large request mere days after rejecting the CRs’ request. It is now clear that opposition to the Coulter event was grounded only in political ideology and had nothing to do with the size of the price tag.

First, none of the changes Congress has made to the Code in the last few months have had an effect on how student organizations obtain funding. In fact, if I remember correctly, the only change made to Title V (the Financial Title) was the elimination of the stipend for the Honor Court Outreach Coordinator (a bill which I wrote).

Second, contrary to what the editorial claims, Student Congress does not “approve” student organizations, the Student Union (and the Division of Student Affairs) does that. So, I can safely say that no group has had its recognition put in jeopardy by the late publication of the Code.

I’ll also note, given that the Speaker cannot appoint clerks without first being elected Speaker, Zach has conducted the appointment process fairly quickly. Within days of his election, applications for the two clerk positions went out, and interviews followed soon after. The clerks themselves would have been confirmed by Congress much sooner, however, illness and scheduling conflicts created some issues here (two items outside the control of Congress and the Speaker).

There are also obvious ethical issues to consider should the Speaker begin unilaterally updating the Code, as the Editorial Board seems to desire. In order to avoid these ethical conflicts of interest, the role of updating the Code is delegated off to the clerks. Admittedly, there are a few kinks in the present system (mainly that there are no “interim” clerks to serve in the transition period between one Congress and the next). However, considering that we’re already paying someone to update the Code and, we don’t want the Speaker to be in the awkward position of making the law and promulgating it, we should reform the current system. Complete abandonment of ethical principles is unnecessary.

In short, the coded editorial misses several points. In the midst of their decoded coding of disencoded things, they made several coded factual errors. In a discoded rush to judgement, they neglected several obvious coded facts. Perhaps in the future, they should decode their own discoded codes before passing judgement on such a coded Congress.

Let me merely echo her sentiments and say that she is dead-on. The veto underscores the absurdity of what came out of Congress and will allow the College Republicans a clean start and hopefully,  a more fair hearing of their request.

But let’s take a look at the Student Code, specifically Title V, Section 109, which reads

Funding decisions for programs, services, or events shall be made without regard to the viewpoints expressed.

According to Section 202, there are four criteria that “should be used in judging the worthiness of any group to receive funding.” Those are

A.  Representation.  SC should consider the  number of students affected  and  the  number of students involved in a project.  SC should try to anticipate this representation by looking  at past involvement, enthusiasm for the  program, current  opinions about  the  program, and  the  amount of involvement anticipated by the organization.

B. Vitality.   SC should consider how  vital  a program is to the organization.  Criteria to be considered should be the priority of the program in relation to other  programs sponsored by the organization,whether or not it is in part  a fundraising program, and  how it would affect the morale of the organization.

C. Specialization.  The Congress should consider how  unique a program is to the  Student Body. It should consider the cultural/educational value  of the program, whether or not it overlaps another program on campus, the amount of recognition it brings  to the University, and  the identification it has with the organization.

D.  Generated Funds, i.e. outside income.

Note that none of these criteria concern the political correctness of a group’s constitution (which, incidentally, must be submitted every year to the Division of Student Affairs for approval).

Now let’s turn to recent events. In the DTH article, Jared Simmons, Chair of the Finance Committee, says that “any uncertainty surrounding the group’s student organization status could give him authority to apply further scrutiny to their [Psalm 100's] requests.”  This “rule” cannot actually be found anywhere in the Code. Title V, Section 106 stipulates that only groups recognized by UNC’s Division of Student Affairs (which Psalm 100 is) may spend student government appropriations. Uncertainty about the group’s future status does not allow Congress to apply extra scrutiny to such groups’ funding requests. Especially considering that no official review of Psalm 100′s status has been announced, it might be prudent for the Finance Committee to refrain from apply “further scrutiny” until such time as Psalm 100′s recognition is actually revoked.

Apparently, some people are above the law

Equally troubling is the tendency for some members of Congress to openly flaunt the above-mentioned rules. Foremost among these is Leah Josephson, District 6 Representative. As you’ll see in the above screenshot, she has pledged “no more funding if i [sic] have anything to do with it.” While Ms. Josephson is entitled to her own opinion, as a member of Congress (and of the Finance Committee), she is required to abide by the funding standards set forth in the Code. Pledging to ensure that a group receives no funding because you disagree with their political/religious beliefs is expressly forbidden by the Code (in addition to the ethical concerns involved) and sets you up for nice, fat lawsuit when the group is denied funding.

While members of our august body may have differences in opinion over Psalm 100′s decision to expel one of its members, such differences in opinion do not allow Congress to cut off access to (or threaten to cut off access to) student government funds. Every student at this university pays into the student government funding pot, and every student at this university has a right to that funding, provided that the criteria set forth in the Code are met. Threatening to cut off access to these resources over political differences is just as bad as expelling someone from your group over political differences. To do so is not only unethical, it is illegal.

First, there is the rather impulsive urge within me that rebells at the thought of making access to the ballot more difficult. The current process, which requires Presidential candidates to obtain 1000 signatures and Congressional candidates 20, does seem reasonable, as it prevents spurious candidates from getting on the ballot. Obtaining 1000 signatures is no easy task, and I think that the ability to do so demonstrates that a candidate is sufficiently dedicated to the campaign to be listed on the ballot. Bumping the requirement up to 1500 seems unnecessary. Though, I do understand the desire to avoid run-off elections. But is it really so hard to vote twice? I guess there’s a little more work involved for the Board of Elections, but other than that, is it really so bad?

Then there’s the issue of raising the signature requirement for members of Congress. Given the difficulty Congress has in filling all its seats every year, should we really be putting measures in place that will make it more difficult for Congressional candidates to get on the ballot? The only place that I can think of where this was a problem last year was the North Campus district (where, admittedly I would have appreciated less competition). It simply seems counter-intuitive to make it more difficult to get into Congress when Congress perpetually has empty seats.

Student elections were self-funded until Fall of 2002 when they became funded by student fee money. The two main arguments in favor of the current arrangement are seemingly convincing, however invalid: self-funding denies poor students the opportunity to run for office; and not having a cap would allow the wealthy students to “buy” the election.

I doubt self-funding would actually deny students the ability to run based on their socioeconomic status. And if a wealthy student wants to be a sad tool and “buy” a student body election, they deserve to have this as their life’s only victory. Somehow, this system worked fine up until 2002. And students can still fundraise to make up the difference which is where things get interesting, because a common argument I’ve heard against fundraising has been that students wouldn’t actually donate money to campaigns because they don’t care enough to do so.

Implicit within that argument, however, one is saying that since students don’t care enough about student government to voluntarily fund elections, student government should force them against their will to do so. Who’s democratic now?

At the end of the day, is anyone really convinced by a-frames or sheets of paper? No. Students are convinced by one-on-one interaction with the candidates and the arguments candidates make at any of the forums students attend. Also crucial is the DTH endorsement. So even if a student didn’t fundraise on parity with other campaigns, this would not impair their ability to win using any of the usual means candidates reach the students.

So complete, private funding with no cap would be ideal, but given the realities of the situation, the most likely scenario where student fee funding is cut would be to have a cap put in place on private money to be spent. Opponents would argue a cap is unenforceable, but the same argument could be made against the current cap. What stops campaigns from just not turning receipts of purchase in? Theoretically, unless someone turns a campaign in, candidates could spend way over $400 and the BOE would be none the wiser. The cap is flawed either way. But the BOE would still have the same punitive tools in its hands to punish campaigns that went over the cap when private money is used, even up to disqualifying a candidate for exceeding the amount.

Stud cong needs to do the right thing and actually return the choice to students as to which campaigns they would fund. Who knows, maybe campaigns would have so little money they won’t annoy us in the pit with fliers or cause us to trip over their silly a-frames. Wouldn’t that be nice…

“Leaders say the way members are elected and the way individuals seek seats make the organization fail to demographically or ideologically represent the student body.”

Hum… “the way members are elected” is failing us. Let’s ponder this for a second. The campus is split up into districts based on geography: south campus, mid-campus, north campus, etc… Students electing their own representatives somehow fails to be representative demographically or ideologically? Apparently, they’re claiming the districts are gerrymandered to return more conservative, male representatives than otherwise would be. How is this possible? At a school that’s overwhelmingly liberal and over 3:2 female to male, I’m not sure this is even possible.

The “way individuals seek seats” is also a trouble spot. Yes, attending a meeting, collecting twenty signatures, and putting up posters to garner votes is really the cause of a lack of representation. Holding elections? Man, so biased in favor of conservative males.

So really, the underlying claim is that democracy is failing us. Which is absolutely absurd.

Now, let’s consider the reason why they think democracy is not truly representative: because there aren’t enough women in Congress. No reason is given as to how this possibly affects Congress negatively. As I tried to point out in the article, the business that Congress conducts doesn’t have a male versus female perspective.

When Bounce magazine approaches Congress requesting money for the eight issues they publish a year, there isn’t a male-female divide on how much money to provide. If the event or item is vital to the mission of the organization, Student Congress must appropriate funds to them. The business of Student Congress is fairly objective. It’s not as if the “half-plus-one” rule for funding publications is a male construction and the addition of more females would alter that. Or is that really what the DTH is arguing?

That would be highly ironic considering the fact that, for the past few decades, extremist feminists have been trying to whitewash the fact that there are differences in the sexes, so apparently the DTH is allowing that fact. But, still, left unsaid is what differences would actually be…

That said, I think missing a post was definitely worth it. Both events were very successful. In fact, they were so successful that we’re already starting to make plans for our next batch of events.

Personally, I think we should branch out and try some innovative types of events. For instance, I think we could start with a Ronald Reagan Day, during which we honor the most important figure in American conservatism by speaking only in Reagan quotes. Everyone who chooses to participate will be required to find a famous Reagan line to fit each and every situation they are in throughout the day (though, for some conservatives, this won’t actually require any change in behavior at all).

I also think we should have some CR-specific events. I would like to have Chris Jones lead a “How to Survive the Apocalypse” seminar. However, as I reread that event title, I realize that I’m not entirely sure which side of the apocalypse issue Chris is on, so that might end up being “How to Start the Apocalypse.” Either way, it’s probably a good idea to know what weapons Chris favors.

And I would love to host an “Ask Crowder” event. I imagine Justin Crowder sitting in the middle of a circle of his peers, whom we invite to pick Crowder’s brain about any issues they find pressing. That might sound innocuous enough. But knowing both Justin and the student body, I envision it ending with Crowder being showered in a hail of flaming arrows while he defends himself with a twenty foot tall American Flag, all the while shouting phrases like, “the knavery of the scoundrels!”

Finally, I think we should have a Bryan Weynand and Nash Keune Bobble Head Day. Maybe we could just pass them out around campus or even distribute them at basketball games (I mean, the same world in which the CR would have bobble heads is the same world in which we would be able to pass them out at basketball games). For one thing, it would be a good marketing ploy. But more importantly, I’ve always wanted to play with a bobble head of myself (I wonder what a psychoanalyst would have to say about that…).

But, as always, I would love to hear any suggestions you have (maybe something a bit more topical than the apocalypse or bobble heads?).

Update: One of the online comments on the DTH article about the protest against the recent $2,095 appropriation to SDS likened the protest group, which was supposedly composed solely of members of the Carolina Review, to a “right-wing goon squad” (despite the fact that the leader of the protest is a Democrat and only three of the protesters are on our staff).

Now, no such entity actually exists. But, I really wish it did. After all, as one of the Editors of the CR, I would presumably be one of the heads of that goon squad- which would be awesome. And, I mean, if people are going to treat us like we have a goon squad, why don’t we just go ahead and form one?

Of course, before we start our goon squad we would need to have some sort of recruitment and initiation process (sort of like a rush for our reactionary cabal). We already have matching t-shirts for everyone to wear (by the way, we recently uncovered a hidden cachet of Carolina Review shirts; just let me know if you want one).

And, this would give the CR editorial staff the opportunity to haze new recruits. For instance, we could have a “minute of shame,” during which we shout truly awful, terrible, and reprehensible terms at our prospective members to test their mettle, like “open minded,” “multiculturalist,” or “tolerant.” Whew- I shudder just imaging having to call innocent people such thoroughly objectionable words. Anyone who could possibly survive such torture would definitely be able to face whatever might be in store for our goons.