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.’

Many of the unfunded student organizations have a specific voice on campus. But this does not mean they serve a small audience.

‘Every single time we’ve had an event, it’s been extremely packed, with people from both the left and right,’ Johnson said. ‘There’s a huge outcome from alumni and people and the general Syracuse area.’

Prerna Abbi and Brianna Collins, both members of Students Advocating Sexual Safety and Empowerment and involved in its production of ‘Vagina Monologues,’ said they are unsure why they received less funding than they requested. They received about $800 less than they asked for and now have $1,800 to put on the production.

Collins mentioned she felt it was unfair because S.A.S.S.E. gives all of its money to charity.

‘If we don’t get enough money to pay for these events, we have to draw against our own account, and that means all of the money that we make from the shows doesn’t go to charity,’ Collins said. ‘I don’t think it’s fair, because our beneficiaries are losing out.’

Corenia White, president of the Student African American Society, said this isn’t the first time there have been problems with funding. SAS was ‘forced on numerous occasions to conduct sit ins at the budget hearings,’ she wrote in an e-mail.

‘In the past, organizations of different ‘ethnicity’ have been given first priority despite the irrelevance of their programming,’ she said.

SAS requested about $23,000 to bring its annual spring speaker, and received no funding.

‘To have events such as parties and unestablished magazines given first priority makes me extremely pissed off,’ she wrote.Tousignant, of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, said minority organizations are now banding together.

‘No longer is it just one organization saying, ‘Why didn’t you give us money?” Tousignant said. ‘It’s all of us standing up and saying, ‘This is not right, this cannot continue, and we will not sit by and quietly allow this to occur.”

SA president-elect Larry Seivert said the assembly is reviewing the budget allocation process.

‘There’s a severe lack of communication going on between SA and student organizations, and I want to make sure we clear that up going forward,’ Seivert said. ‘This is a recurring issue every year, and I want to make sure we are working diligently to consider that all student organizations and groups are represented.’

White agreed and said the divide between SA and student groups needs to change for progress to be made.

‘We all want to improve the socio-academic status of this university,’ she said. ‘But without finding a common ground, that will never happen.’

mequalte@syr.edu

Published on November 18, 2008 at 12:00 pm