Forty years ago this week the associated students of this University filed suit in Lane County Circuit Court for student control of the incidental fee. As the year progressed, students agitated what became known as the Grape Rebellion, protesting the quality and quantity of grapes in dining halls. Students fought for an ethnic studies program, the state legislature first moved to put students on the Oregon State Board of Higher Education, and student employees in the EMU tried to organize a labor union. Perhaps out of fear of the student uprising that was spreading across the nation, the University administration often bent, at least rhetorically, when the ASUO made demands in 1969. And when the administrators bent, the ASUO said it was insulting and not good enough.
The balance of power may seem perverse today, but administrators probably had good reason to fear students: By the end of 1970, several bombs had exploded on campus. Buildings were set on fire. No one wanted to be the next Kent State, where four students were killed and nine others were wounded by the Ohio National Guard on
May 4, 1970.
Of all the concessions the University made at that time, one relic of the era of student power remains: The incidental fee is controlled by students at this University.
The lawsuit for control of the i-fee came in response to the University administration’s veto the previous spring of ASUO budget recommendations that, the Emerald reported, “had cut all but a $100,000 reserve fund from the athletic department, abolished funds for the marching band and rally board, and had funded an ethnic studies center, an ombudsman, a conflict management center and a visiting professor.”
Within weeks of assuming office, University President Robert D. Clark restored $67,000 to ASUO programs and later handed over some over-realized funds and money collected from the sale of athletic tickets. Clark also quickly articulated a set of guidelines under which students could control student dollars.
Forty years later, this University has a larger incidental fee than most Pac-10 universities. An Emerald article from February 2007 showed students here have greater control over the incidental fee than nearly any university in the country. Oregon State University’s i-fee was $192.15 per student per term in 2007; the Associated Students of Oregon State University controlled $28.29 per student per term — or 14.7 percent of their i-fee.
This week, the conservative publication at OSU, The Liberty, sued OSU for confiscating its distribution bins and throwing them next to a dumpster. The disregard for student’s rights shown in such an action is unimaginable here. Administrators questioned whether the paper is an “on-campus” publication, which no one could ask of the Oregon Commentator because it is funded by the ASUO. But this is too clinical an explanation for why it could not happen here.
It would be unfathomable for administrators to destroy student newspapers here because the memes behind the i-fee — that we will be better at keeping a republic if we start practicing early, that democracy can’t exist without universities and universities ought to be democratic — has been a part of our campus culture for a very long time.
The tide of student power lifts even the boats of its dissenters. The Oregon Commentator will be safe to criticize student power for a long time.
This column could have been filled with pithy observations about the ASUO Senate, the group of students with the most say in how the i-fee is spent. Wednesday night the Senate will gain two members in what could be described as a victory for the purple team from last spring’s elections thanks to the appointment power of the red team, with whom the purple team ostensibly aligned in the second week of the election. Such an observation means little when, as last week’s Senate meeting illustrated, four-fifths of all senators will vote for spending requests no matter how tough their rhetoric or how long they keep McCain stickers on their laptops.
Senators may squabble weekly over which groups should get the most candy, and reporters drawn to the theater of the meetings and, perhaps, wanting to have something to show for long hours spent cramped in those meetings, may occasionally overplay the conflicts. Academic politics is so vicious, Sayre’s Law says, because the stakes are so low.
But let’s not forget the significance of the larger struggle for students to have a say in how our campus operates. The ASUO matters because it does. The incidental fee and the culture that spawned it make this University exceptional. What happens to the fee, and what decisions are made in the ASUO, are worthy of diligent attention.
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What separates us from other campuses
Daily Emerald
October 6, 2009
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