In October 1970, political activist Ralph Nader delivered a message to thousands of idealistic students gathered at the University’s McArthur Court.
Nader told them they had the power to protect the environment, to hold corporations accountable and ultimately shape the country they lived in.
Nader promised students that a group he called the Oregon Student Public Interest Research Group could do the work if they provided the funds.
Students voted and the first student PIRG chapter was born; at its strongest point, 12 campuses in Oregon had active chapters.
The Oregon Daily Emerald editorial board wrote in 1971 that the annual $3 that went to OSPIRG from every student’s incidental fee provided students a big bang for the buck.
However, though the mission of OSPIRG remains unchanged, the group’s reputation has since come under fire.
Forty years after Nader first spoke about his promising new organization, OSPIRG lost student funding for the second time in 10 years at the University. Only Southern Oregon University and Lane Community College continue to pay for student OSPIRG chapters with student fees.
Though the group has been defunded at the University, OSPIRG continues to pay a campus organizer, hold meetings and work on issues such as offshore drilling, voter registration and homelessness in hopes the Athletic Contract Finance Committee reconsiders its case.
“We hope to restore funding at the University of Oregon,” University Chapter Chair Charles Denson said. “We are applying through the ACFC for a contract this year. We did so last year, as well, but the year previous there had been a few members who had been on the committee both times and now the committee is made up almost entirely of new people.”
A question of funding
Debate over OSPIRG’s funding took hold in 1998.
The Oregon Commentator spearheaded the Honesty Campaign, an attempt to defund OSPIRG on the basis that the student group used incidental fees to pay the salaries of lobbyists in Salem and not to enrich student life on campus.
That year, 55 percent of students voted to defund the group, but one year later, students voted again to restore OSPIRG’s funding.
The campaign’s argument against OSPIRG resurfaced in 2008. The ASUO’s ACFC voted in spring 2009 to take away the group’s funding once again.
Only this time, the decision stuck.
Sam Dotters-Katz, former president of the ASUO led the crusade against OSPIRG in 2008, not because he disagreed with the policies it pursued, but because of the organization’s prioritizing professional salaries of advocates over campus-focused programs.
“Would the ASUO find it acceptable for Students for Choice to give money to hire an abortion lobbyist?” he said. “I mean, many students on campus want greater gun laws just like they want lower text book prices or to end global warming, but we, the ASUO, cannot give them money to hire a lobbyist either. All we can do is give them money to be active on this campus.”
OSPIRG Executive Director Dave Rosenfeld argued that OSPIRG advocates are an integral part of what makes OSPIRG a successful activist organization and that they fill a role students do not have time to take on with classes and other commitments.
Dotters-Katz said students are more motivated to lobby on behalf of themselves than OSPIRG gives them credit for, but that the lack of resources is what keeps students focused on campus.
“The argument was always that students couldn’t be in Salem every day protecting their interests,” he said. “But I always felt like $120,000 would have paid for countless bus trips to Salem where students could have gone to represent themselves.”
Brianna Woodside-Gomez, a senator on the ACFC, the board that ultimately decides OSPIRG’s financial fate, said though OSPIRG’s mission is noble, there is a debate in the ASUO over whether students should fund a group that hires a professional staff.
Yet, despite the controversy, many students still remain uninvolved in the debate over OSPIRG and its funding.
“It’s not something that’s entirely relevant to me,” University student Craig Macfie said. “I just don’t attend to it.”
Other students, such as junior RJ Ring, said that the group offers valuable voting campaigns, which he said helps students understand the importance of voting.
Logistically speaking
Rosenfeld said the student-focused OSPIRG is an entirely separate organization from the state-focused Oregon State Public Interest Research Group, also called OSPIRG, and the U.S. PIRG.
But the groups often pool resources to hire lobbyists, researchers and other professionals.
The student and state OSPIRGs also share an office at 1536 SE 11th Ave. Suite A in Portland.
“I thought it was disingenuous that they called themselves a student PIRG, but the people they were paying were also paid by the state organization,” Dotters-Katz said.
In a 2009 tax return, the student group listed a $30,811 salary for health care advocate Laura Etherton, who is also listed on the state PIRG’s website as a state PIRG advocate for health care.
The same tax return also said $85,916 of the student PIRG budget was paid to the U.S. PIRG organization, which is headquartered in Boston, for consultation purposes.
Rosenfeld said that in extenuating circumstances, students on the state student PIRG board can vote to transfer funds to pay for other organization’s immediate needs.
Because the University’s student PIRG lost its funding in 2009, the state board voted to pay OSPIRG’s campus coordinator’s starting salary, which is $23,715 to maintain a presence on the University campus.
Denson said OSPIRG is a non-partisan organization, which means they are not allowed to lobby for specific pieces of legislation, political parties or candidates.
In a 2008 tax return, the state organization gave $1,633,289 in grants and other assistance to Environment Oregon and Oregonians for Health Security, which both endorse political candidates and lobby for specific legislation.
In 2008, the student organization also spent $196,526 lobbying for health-care reform.
Katie Taylor, OSPIRG student state-wide board treasurer and University student, said OSPIRG is not a lobbying organization.
“(OSPIRG) is not lobbying unless they’re doing it for a candidate or ballot measure or any specific piece of policy, whereas our staff is advocating not on specific policies, but for general solutions,” Taylor said.
Taylor said OSPIRG’s involvement in the No Drills No Spills campaign for a moratorium on offshore drilling does not constitute the same thing as lobbying.
However, College Republicans membership coordinator Trevor Anderson questions the organization’s definition of non-partisan.
“It doesn’t necessarily represent the majority of what students believe,” Anderson said. “They are taking money form every student’s pocket and taking off campus while advising a partial view of student life.”
As of press time, the organization’s tax advocate could not be reached for questioning.
Blazing new trails
In spring 2010, a year after the group was defunded, Students for OSPIRG campaigned for Ballot Measure 1, a non-binding statement that gauged public opinion on restoring funding to the student PIRG.
The ballot measure passed in favor of OSPIRG, despite an executive slate campaign by Reality Check, which opposed OSPIRG and held a rally against the group in the spring election.
So when Amelie Rousseau was elected as ASUO’s 2010-11 president, OSPIRG, who could not formally endorse any candidate in the election, found an ally in the Executive.
“I can’t get excited; I’m not allowed to have an opinion,” Rosenfeld said.
Ho
wever, Rousseau made it clear that she is more than happy to work to restore funding to OSPIRG.
“We don’t want to get in the way of the finance
process, but one thing we’ve done is to make a more welcoming space for OSPIRG. We definitely have made OSPIRG more welcome in the ASUO and just on campus in general, and I am really proud of that,” Rousseau said.
Taylor said OSPIRG is looking for $117,000 in funding from the ASUO; however, she is not clear where the money to refinance the group will come from.
“(The money) doesn’t have to come from the incidental fee, it’s up to the ACFC,” Taylor said. “I’m not going to tell the ACFC to take money from another organization or to increase the I-fee. I’m interested in telling the ACFC to fund this program that is beneficial to this campus and to this world.”
In the first OSPIRG meeting of the year in October, Rousseau, former ASUO Political Director Robert D’Andrea and Vice President and former OSPIRG volunteer Maneesh Arora were among the first in attendance.
D’Andrea cracked jokes openly with Denson, referring to him as his friend Chuckles.
Though OSPIRG has been busy working on mobilizing the student vote this term, the meeting gave more than 30 students who were interested in interning for the organization a chance to get involved in one of the group’s three campaigns for the year.
OSPIRG’s initiatives included No Drills No Spills, Hunger and Homelessness and the New Voters Project.
Eugene Mayor Kitty Piercy, who is familiar with OSPIRG’s struggle on the University campus, spoke about the importance of fighting for issues no matter the obstacles at the October meeting.
“I worked with OSPIRG in the state legislature, and I can tell you from first-hand experience that we need you; I need you,” Piercy said. “When people say that you shouldn’t get involved in state-wide politics that aren’t directly affecting students, tell them, ‘Sorry, but I actually drink this water, and sorry, but I actually breathe this air.’”
Arianna Koudounas, the student chapter’s campus organizer, understands Piercy’s point all too well.
Koudounas works between 50-80 hours a week for just a little more than $20,000 a year and a trip to Colorado to ski during winter break, which is offered to campus organizers throughout the country.
However, Koudounas says her connection to OSPIRG’s goals keeps her motivated to reach students and find funding.  
“I really believe in the mission. At any time of day, corporations and masterminds are trying to screw us over,” Koudounas said. “So to have advocates and lawyers who research these issues every day and motivate students is really powerful.”
Eric Diep, Steven Foreman, Ryan Imondi, Reed Jackson, Benson Ka’ai, Ryan Lane, Patrick McCaully, Darin Moriki, Christopher Parker, Michael Putnam, Richard Reed, Rockne Roll, Rebecca Sedlak, Lieghti Sharp and Chris Wig contributed to the reporting of this story.
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Editor’s note: This article originally misstated the year of tax return it referenced. The 2009 tax return listed a $30,811 salary for a health care advocate. The article misstated a transaction between OSPIRG and Environment Oregon and Oregonians for Health. OSPIRG granted $1,633,289 to Environment Oregon and Oregonians for Health. The organization’s tax advocate was contacted before the story’s publication. OSPIRG uses the Internal Revenue Service’s definition of lobbying to maintain their 501(c)(3) tax status, which differs from the Merriam-Webster dictionary definition provided by the Emerald. The errors have since been corrected.