Two members of the committee that allocates student money who made controversial statements at a Feb. 1 budget hearing for the Oregon Commentator have been booted from the committee because they “acted in willful defiance of viewpoint neutrality,” the ASUO Constitution Court ruled on Monday.
The judgment removes former Programs Finance Committee members Eden Cortez, Dan
Kieffer and Mason Quiroz from the committee, although Kieffer resigned last month. The decision removes Quiroz from the PFC and Cortez from the PFC and the ASUO Student Senate.
The ruling came in response to a petition filed by Commentator Publisher Dan Atkinson on Feb. 7.
Cortez says he will appeal the decision by the end of the week, saying the court acted improperly by basing its ruling on a quote
he claims he did not say during the meeting.
Chief Justice Randy Derrick, writing for the court, stated Cortez said, “Of course we can look at content in determining a group’s value. Otherwise this job could be done by robots.”
Derrick also said in the decision: “This statement clearly demonstrates that Cortez was considering content in his analysis of the Oregon Commentator outside of the bounds set by viewpoint neutrality.”
But Cortez said he has reviewed minutes from the meeting and can verify that he did not make the statement. He said an audience member made the statement.
“That’s a false statement to be making,” he said. “To quote me on something (they) assume I said … that’s just giving wrong information from the Oregon Commentator’s part to the Con Court.”
Atkinson told the Emerald that the statement is “not an exact quote,” but that Cortez said something to that effect. He said he specified in the petition that he wasn’t quoting Cortez’s exact words.
“I was just trying to recall my own experiences of the hearing,” he said.
He added that he didn’t think the accuracy of the statement affected the court’s overall ruling.
“I don’t know that the court ruled entirely based on that quote,” he said. “I presume it went over the minutes and made its own decision.”
The decision also states that Cortez erred because he “did not provide a budgetary rationale for disapproving the (Commentator’s) budget.”
Cortez was removed from the Senate because “the findings of removal crosses over into his duties as an ASUO Senator,” according to the decision.
However, Cortez said the court is preventing him from doing his job as an elected official.
“(The court) is pretty much silencing my voice that I represent as a student on campus as a student of color,” he said.
Derrick said he would not elaborate on the decisions.
“He has the right to file a motion for reconsideration if he feels there was an inaccuracy,” he said.
Although the three rulings are similar, both the decisions against Cortez and Kieffer cite the court’s finding against Quiroz.
That ruling came in response to Atkinson’s allegations that Quiroz violated the prominent Supreme Court findings of Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of University of Virginia and Southworth v. Board of Regents of University of Wisconsin System. Atkinson also alleged in the petition that Quiroz violated the ASUO Constitution and intended to continue violation of those rules with prejudice against the Commentator.
The central question of the Commentator controversy was whether a PFC member could take the Commentator’s content into consideration “when approving the Mission and Goals and subsequent funding for an incidental fee funded publication,” according to the decision.
The three PFC members expressed concerns during hearings of the publication’s mission and goals that the Commentator, a conservative magazine, published what some have called hate speech.
The court found that the Rosenberger and Southworth rulings prevent PFC members from looking at a publication’s content.
“The proper measure, and the principle standard of protection for objecting students … is the requirement of viewpoint neutrality in the allocation of funding support,” according to the decision.
Quiroz “made several statements that demonstrate a clear violation of viewpoint neutrality by reviewing and making judgment about the Oregon Commentators (sic) content,” according to the decision. Quiroz’s statements include: “They should be rejected, not because we reject their overall attempts at sophomoric humor … but because they have targeted a particular person in an abusive and dangerous way,” Derrick said in the decision.
The decision against Kieffer states that he “fully comprehended and understood that he was in violation of viewpoint neutrality” when he “publicly states that he would not obey an ‘unjust law.’”
Kieffer also “did not provide a budgetary rationale for disapproving the budget,” according to the decision.
Kieffer said he disagreed with the ruling, although he said the court was following its guidelines.
“My personal opinion is rules can sometimes be completely useless in finding a good solution to a problem,” he said. “I would have liked it to rule in favor of the PFC (members) who stand behind this issue.”
Commentator Editor in Chief Tyler Graf was pleased with the decision.
“I do believe that the Con Court made the right decision,” he said. “Mason was grandstanding and clearly not doing the job people elected him to do.”
Justice Charlotte Nisser disagreed with the punishments for Quiroz and Cortez, stating that “the remedy determined by the Court is excessive.”

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