This week, the ASUO Executive made for the first time in a long time a very clear recommendation on the ongoing saga of OSPIRG and the funding it receives from the ASUO incidental fee that all students pay. It recommended that OSPIRG be completely defunded. The Emerald has called for increased scrutiny of OSPIRG and its use of our student dollars several times in the past. In 2007, the Emerald called for OSPIRG to be defunded, citing transparency and accountability concerns. In light of the proposal by ASUO President Sam Dotters-Katz to end OSPIRG’s contract with the ASUO, we would like to now reiterate this opinion.
Our concern stems from three issues. First, we feel the vast majority of OSPIRG’s funding does not provide a direct benefit to students on this campus in the way other ASUO contracts do. The Athletics and Contracts Finance Committee, which decides the OSPIRG contract, is required by its mission statement to negotiate and fund contracts that “offer services that enhance the physical and cultural development of students of the University of Oregon.” While it can certainly be argued that OSPIRG’s programs are worthwhile, we feel OSPIRG is not using our student fees to provide a direct service to University students. This is simply because so many of OSPIRG’s services are carried out somewhere else and for programs that, while laudable, are so indirectly tied to student benefits.
Second, we are concerned that under its contract, OSPIRG is not required to provide any specific services to students, but rather work on campaigns according to the direction of its board. In OSPIRG’s own words, the services it provides “range wildly.” This stands in contrast to many other ACFC programs, which provide direct services to students in exchange for contract funding. Lane Transit District gives us free bus service in exchange for our student fees. The Sexual Assault Support Services provide, well, sexual assault support services in exchange for ASUO money. ASUO Legal Services provides free legal services to University students. OSPIRG? It provides a series of student-directed campaigns on political and economic issues for which it cannot directly lobby and may be subject to change according to the priorities of its student board and professional staff.
Because OSPIRG’s campaigns can change according to the whim of the OSPIRG board, it can never be that clear to students paying into the ASUO budget exactly what services they get in exchange for OSPIRG’s funding. Further, few of these campaigns, and more importantly, few of the student dollars, are truly conducted for students on campus, and are in fact carried out by hired staff in Portland.
Finally, we are concerned OSPIRG’s non-profit status makes it ineffective to its contracted goals. By law, OSPIRG is not allowed to “lobby” state and federal legislators for reform, and is instead restricted to much more limited “advocacy.” This means that even students who are involved in OSPIRG and believe their campaigns are worth pursuing can only do so to a very limited degree. OSPIRG cannot pursue reforms nearly as aggressively as other organizations that could be contracted to do the same advocacy work. Further, because its student volunteers must also adhere to these legal limits imposed by OSPIRG’s “advocacy” status, they are not able to gain as many skills from their OSPIRG experiences as they would if they were allowed to use more aggressive means to pursue legislative and social reforms.
We do believe there should be student opportunities for advocacy. We also feel students should receive ASUO funding to pursue the issues they care about. But we fear this is not effectively done when funding mostly goes to off-campus professionals and not to on-campus student programs or to student advocates themselves. We feel these opportunities to pursue issues important to students simply are not being afforded as effectively or accountably as they could be. OSPIRG, except during this once-yearly contract negotiation, is not legally required to answer to the direction of democratically-elected ASUO senators. An alternative might be a set of contracts, where each (formerly OSPIRG) campaign is specifically contracted as a service to the ASUO. Another alternative might be to use student funding to direct other programs, many of which already exist, to hire student advocates in order to provide these services as needed by the ASUO.
In light of the problems of locality, specificity of their services, and the permitted aggressiveness of OSPIRG campaigns (and therefore its ability to effectively impact policy and actually involve students in policy making), it is our conclusion that the ASUO Executive recommendation should be carried out by the ACFC and advocacy services should be made available in a way that puts our student fee dollars to more effective use.
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