Just a few hours ago, a budget committee of the Wisconsin state legislature voted to hobble students’ ability to fund the nation’s oldest and most respected statewide student association, United Council. This could well be the biggest student movement story in the United States this year.
United Council, founded in 1960, was the first of the wave of state student associations established in the sixties and seventies, and has consistently been one of the most successful. UC has for half a century been a strong voice for students in Madison and across Wisconsin, and is a model and mentor to student organizers across the country.
Though United Council has at times been controversial in some quarters, it rests on a democratic base of student support. Campuses join UC by student referendum, and students on campuses that choose to join pay a membership fee of $3 a semester as part of their tuition bill. Individual students have the right to request a refund of the fee if they don’t wish to support United Council, and any time that a student government or group of students comes to oppose UC they can arrange to run a referendum to end their campus’s membership.
This is how United Council funding has operated for decades, and it’s a structure that is standard for student groups nationwide. From state student associations to PIRGs to the US Student Association, it’s a straightforward, democratic system that combines membership accountability with reliable, robust funding. Don’t like the group? Organize against them. Like them? Organize for them. Simple.
Which brings us to tonight.
This evening, the Joint Finance Committee of the Wisconsin state legislature took up an omnibus funding measure for the University of Wisconsin as part of the state budgeting process. Tonight, when that omnibus proposal reached the JFC, it included a provision eliminating the so-called “mandatory refundable fee” through which UC receives its funding. Instead, any campus funding for UC would be on an “opt-in” basis, meaning that individual students would have to affirmatively choose to pay UC dues rather than being given the option of opting out.
For United Council this would mean the virtual elimination of their student funding base. Organizing campus by campus is reasonable and democratic. Organizing student by student, three dollars at a time, is unworkable.
Democratic members of the Joint Finance Committee spoke out against the UC proposal, which was apparently sprung on them without warning, but the chair of the committee refused to allow a vote on a proposal to amend the omnibus measure to remove it. When the vote on the full omnibus — a proposal that provided not only for the UW budget, but also a politically popular tuition freeze — it was endorsed by a 14-t0-2 margin, with just two Democrats standing in opposition.
With the approval of the UW omnibus measure by the JFC, that proposal now becomes part of the state budget which goes to the Assembly and Senate for action. Both houses of the legislature are currently controlled by Republicans, and I am told that budgetary amendments on the floor of either house are uncommon. Final approval of the budget is expected sometime next month.
I’m still getting up to speed on exactly where this proposal came from and what the likely prognosis is now — as I said, the defunding plan took even careful observers of the Wisconsin legislature by surprise, and “careful observers of the Wisconsin state legislature” is not a group I usually count myself among. To my knowledge, there has been no media coverage of this development so far, beyond a few mentions on a Wisconsin politics blog earlier this evening.
I will know more, and report more, tomorrow. But for tonight, I’ll close with this:
The proposal adopted by the JFC tonight, if enacted as law, would essentially defund the nation’s oldest statewide student association, and one of its strongest. One SSA, the Arizona Students’ Association, has already been defunded this way this year. To lose United Council would be an immeasurable blow to the American student movement, and to students’ rights in Wisconsin.
United Council stands at the heart of American student organizing, and has for more than fifty years.
It is, to put it plainly, irreplaceable.
Morning Update | As United Council’s government affairs director Dylan Jambrek (a veteran Wisconsin student government leader himself) noted on Twitter late last night, not only did the JFC pass a two-year UW tuition freeze yesterday, Republican legislators thanked United Council for their work in helping to bring it about, even as they were plotting to defund the organization. “United Council has worked closely with GOP legislators this semester on the UW budget,” he writes, and “this was never discussed. This is simply a backstab.”
Second Update | More on the anti-democratic politics of the defunding vote .
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May 23, 2013 at 11:12 pm
Thursday Night Links: Liars, Scoundrels, Star Trek, and More | Gerry Canavan
[…] * The Wisconsin State Legislature is trying to defund United Council, the oldest state student associa… […]
May 23, 2013 at 11:51 pm
Bob Finnigan
UC is useless. I’ve been to UC events, and even served on the board. It’s a useless organization run by idiots. Do not mourn it.
May 24, 2013 at 6:20 am
Angus Johnston
Well, Bob, by all accounts UC had a lot to do with the tuition freeze in Wisconsin that passed yesterday, so to call them “useless” this particular week seems a bit of a stretch.
But setting that aside, here’s the thing: The referendum process and UC elections are the mechanisms by which students can address these issues. If students don’t like the way United Council is doing things, they can organize to toss them out or change them. If the leg was interested in strengthening that process — in supporting and enhancing campus democracy — I’d be in favor of it, even if that meant a tougher road for UC. Hold their feet to the fire? Make them work for their support? I’m all for it.
But this isn’t that. This is the opposite of that. This is denying students the ability to make these decisions for themselves, and that’s not just, because instead of giving students the ability to fix whatever’s wrong with UC, it’s precluding such efforts.
May 24, 2013 at 11:21 am
Joint Committee on Finance votes to revoke Mandatory Refundable Fee for United Council |
[…] Check out Angus’ post over at studentactivism for a great overview of the issue: https://studentactivism.net/2013/05/23/save-uc/ […]
May 24, 2013 at 11:48 am
Citizen Victory
Bob, does it bother you at all that our so-called elected leaders are overreaching here with their constant attempts to take away rights and power from organizations that have absolutely ZERO to do with fixing their budget and jobs issues?
At what point, Bob, do you wake up and realize that your elected leaders are invading your personal freedoms and overstepping their boundaries as politicians? What point? When they take away your right to post stupid comments online?
May 24, 2013 at 6:04 pm
mikeo
” To lose United Council would be an immeasurable blow to the American student movement, and to students’ rights in Wisconsin.”
Isn’t that the point?
And / or is it part of an effort to require all activities to be funded only to the extent that they acquire voluntary contributions from individuals? In short, create markets for activities, and consumer choices will determine which thrive, or, even, survive. Here “consumer” dos not just mean “participant,” but also students who think highly enough of an activity, irrespective of their own participation, to want it on campus. Put otherwise, do not construe the student body as any kind of community, collectivity or polity that decides matters by voting. Construe it solely as an aggregate of individual consumers.
May 24, 2013 at 9:02 pm
Bob Finnigan
UC only operated with the budget it had before, not because students are knowledgeable of the organization and support it, but because 90% of students have no idea their tuition money goes to fund it. If UC truly provides a meaningful and respected service, asking students to opt in doesn’t seem so harmful.
May 24, 2013 at 9:44 pm
Angus Johnston
Here’s the thing, Bob. UC is currently funded on a democratic basis, and the students of 20 out of the 26 UC campuses have voted in referenda to support the organization. Many of the students may not know what UC is, but there’s nothing stopping its opponents from organizing against them. Mostly they haven’t effectively done so.
As I noted in my follow-up piece, UC received about twice as many votes in its most recent Eau Claire referendum as the current student government president — a UC opponent — received in his election campaign. If UC isn’t legitimate, then what student government in UW is?