This past week the Executive Board held their second meeting in which a complaint was heard concerning the funding of Fahrenheit 9/11, presented by the College Republicans. They contested that the movie was explicitly making a political statement. While there was not much argument to this statement, the E-Board is given the authority to fund events that may be political in nature if they present an educational or cultural value to the entire campus, and the event is not held by an organization that is political in nature. Examples of this could include speakers, workshops, or other events that are held every year and sponsored by the Union on campus.

The current budgeting policy of the Union is stated as follows, “the Union will not subsidize any religious or political organization or any group, which claims affiliation with such an organization, nor will it fund any organization that endorses a particular political or religious viewpoint.” This leads to the second point made by the College Republicans that UPAC Cinema, the organization responsible for showing Fahrenheit 9/11, was indeed endorsing a political viewpoint by showing the movie. They implied that the members of UPAC Cinema had political ambitions behind the showing of the movie, and that there exists a possibility that a political interest group could gain control of an organization such as UPAC Cinema and therefore use Union funding to express a single political viewpoint.

The abuse of Union monies by outside groups with agendas separate from the club purpose is a valid concern, which comes up outside of political funding. In the past, the E-Board has had to deal with situations in which fraternities have gained access to Union funding through clubs, but we have has always been quick to recognize and remedy the problem when this has occurred. In this case, the E-Board determined that clearly UPAC Cinema was showing this movie because it was a popular movie, one that is up for an academy award and would simply draw students out to see it. Even though Fahrenheit 9/11 obviously held a strong, narrow political viewpoint, it was simply a film that was played in theatres not only on our campus, but all over the country. As it turns out, the movie was shown this past weekend without incident.

In response to this E-Board meeting, the Student Senate has taken the initiative to put together a policy to deal with the funding of political and religious organizations, primarily written by our Grand Marshal, Mike Dillon. They currently have a motion on the floor to set the policy on exactly how the Union will fund political and religious organizations. The motion begins by further defining what is meant by political, which is nearly impossible due to the ambiguity of what it really means for something to be considered political. The policy begins by stating exactly what is already policy; simply that the Union will not fund political and religious organizations. The motion has gone beyond this to say that the Senate will ultimately have the final say in the appeal of E-Board decisions concerning political funding, and will have the final say in the classification of clubs as political. This means that the Senate will be responsible for the duties of the Judicial Board, the Executive Board, and the legislating body when it comes to political funding of clubs and organizations. This is quite an arduous task, but does this not present a conflict of interest?