After months of drawn-out debate, impassioned reactions and grievances, the ASUO’s Programs Finance Committee approved the Oregon Commentator’s mission statement and budget in a speedy and uneventful hearing Monday. The conservative journal of opinion will receive $16,376 in the upcoming year, a 5.63 percent budget increase.
The hearing was a continuation of the Commentator’s first PFC meeting Feb. 1, a highly contentious affair that resulted in the journal’s mission statement being rejected for a second time. While more than 110 people attended the first fractious hearing, this hearing generated little attention.
PFC Member Jared Axelrod moved to approve the mission statement saying the Commentator has had the same mission for
many years.
“I think it falls in line with the University of Oregon’s standards,” he said.
PFC Member Mike Sherman agreed.
“It does comply with all the rules of the ASUO and the University,” he said.
Sherman later moved to approve the journal’s budget, which passed with a 3-0-1 vote, saying the group had demonstrated it was fiscally responsible.
Oregon Commentator Editor in Chief Tyler Graf said the hearing went as expected.
“I knew this one was going to be much more professional,” he said. “There were no surprises here.”
Controversy has dogged the Commentator’s budget allocation since December when PFC members voted to reject the journal’s mission statement after former ASUO senator Toby Hill-Meyer, who is transgender, claimed the statements made in the magazine made Hill-Meyer feel unsafe. The journal’s critics assert that it promotes hate speech.
Graf has said the magazine does not “commit hate speech” and statements made about Hill-Meyer in the magazine were satirical.
PFC members rejected the mission again at the Feb. 1 meeting. In a tense standoff, some ASUO members stressed the need to stay viewpoint-neutral and not consider the Commentator’s content when allocating funds, while others insisted the Commentator did not contribute to students’ cultural and physical development. Stuck in a stalemate, the committee adjourned the meeting without making any funding decisions.
The Feb. 1 hearing spawned diverse reactions. PFC Vice Chair Mason Quiroz, who had spearheaded the campaign to reject the mission statement, verbally resigned at the meeting, but later recanted his resignation. However, the Commentator filed official grievances against Quiroz, PFC Member Eden Cortez and former PFC Member Dan Kieffer, stating that based on comments made at the meeting, the three were biased against the journal and could not make viewpoint-neutral decisions. As a result, the ASUO Constitutional Court announced injunctions against Quiroz and Cortez, temporarily barring them from voting at any PFC hearings. Kieffer resigned.
Neither Quiroz nor Hill-Meyer attended Monday’s hearing.

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