“Under no circumstances shall any incidental-fee paying student … be denied the right to participate in or attend an activity or event, fund-raiser or otherwise, that is sponsored in whole or in part by an incidental-fee funded (Programs Finance Committee) Program based solely on that student’s inability to pay the requisite donation or admission charge.” (Student Senate Rule 13.7).
Attention students: You are currently being screwed.
And, it seems, the ASUO Executive doesn’t care. The ASUO Student Senate doesn’t care, either. Neither does the EMU Ticket Office.
That’s right, every time you pay for a ticket to a cultural event on campus that is funded, in full or in part, with incidental fees, you are effectively paying a second time for something that you’ve already paid for (being “ripped off,” in the parlance of our times). And the student government evidently doesn’t feel it necessary to tell you about it.
Each year, students pay millions in mandatory incidental fees. A portion of that amount is distributed to student groups on campus. These groups then may take the allotted money and fund events. These events — recent examples include Utsav and “The Vagina Monologues” — are funded with your money. When students later pay extra for a ticket to the student-funded event, that’s unfair double taxation.
A prime analogy is the newspaper you’re reading right now. Each year students pay through incidental fees what is effectively a subscription cost, and in return students can expect to pick up a free copy of the Emerald every day, if they so choose. Now, if the Emerald installed change deposits on dispensers and forced students to pay an additional 5 cents per copy, how fair would that be?
ASUO President Maddy Melton told the Emerald that she isn’t advertising the rule — which would be as simple as telling the Ticket Office to post a sign outside its office stating a student’s right to a free ticket — because she thinks it should be changed. Essentially, Melton would rather see students suffer double-taxation than enforce a logically and ethically sound principle.
Senate President Ben Strawn said he thinks the lack of knowledge about the ticket rule is a problem, yet he said it is not the responsibility of the Senate or the Executive to educate students about their right to free tickets. Director of Ticketing Services Mary Barrios said it’s not her responsibility either, and she refused to post a sign informing students of their right. Instead, students are directed to the student group, where more complications can be expected due to most student groups’ likely ignorance to the rule.
But the question remains: What good is the student government if it’s unwilling to enforce its own rules or educate students about their rights? Can we trust people with our money who flaunt rules at the real expense of the very people whose interests they’re obligated to defend?
Melton argues that if students can’t be double-taxed, student groups will need more incidental fees to pay for events. She added that students who aren’t interested in events would be forced to pay more in incidental fees. This may be true, but it doesn’t change the fact that students who pay once for a service may be too poor to pay for it a second time, nor does it change the fact that an ASUO rule isn’t being enforced.
It’s insulting that the Executive has the audacity to screw over strapped students in the interest of a few student-group events and at the expense of fairness to its constituents. Sure, it’s not technically the Executive’s or the Senate’s job to advertise any particular rule, but certainly it falls within the spirit of their roles as student fiscal authorities. A student government that has rallied so hard to keep tuition down in the stated interest of saving student dollars, but refuses to enforce this rule, smacks disturbingly of hypocrisy.
As long as the rule exists in the Green Tape Notebook, students ARE entitled to free tickets to incidental-fee funded events. So if you, Joe or Jane Student, can’t afford a ticket and can’t get a free one at the Ticket Office or from the student group, then go to the ASUO Executive office, located at Suite 4 of the EMU (on the ground floor), and demand enforcement of the rule. Get a copy of the Green Tape Notebook, or view it online at http://gladstone.uoregon.edu/~senate/documents/greenTapeNotebook.pdf. Don’t leave until you get a straight answer — something that this administration lacks all too often — and by all means, don’t let this institution steal your money.