Activity funding for political organizations is not only a contentious issue at RPI. The University at Albany chapter of The Collegian Action Leadership League of New York, a conservative-leaning group, has sued both the State University of New York system as well as the president of the University at Albany’s Student Association.
The disagreement stems over the group’s right to a campus-wide vote on whether all students should pay a $5 fee to fund the group. The group has asked for such a referendum twice but permission was denied and the group holds that the campus’s liberal-leaning New York Public Interest Research Group chapter at UAlbany seems to get a referendum for a $5 fee every four years.
The $5 fee would raise over $100,000 for the CALL-NY chapter compared to the $1000 it received from the Student Association last year. The group said it would use the money to pay for speakers and planting trees.
