I write in response to a letter authored by Arista Hickman regarding OSPIRG’s funding for next year (“OSPIRG is major asset to University community,” ODE, Jan. 21). No one can argue with the fact that the Oregon Student Public Interest Research Group has some positive impacts on the University of Oregon campus, so what does it say to you when such a group’s funding is called into question? This is a direct response to hypocritical and unclear spending habits exhibited by a public service group.
About this time last year, a scandal erupted on the University campus when it was revealed that OSPIRG felt it appropriate to take thousands of dollars from its budget of student funds and send it off to another major Oregon university. Apparently, the University was doing its part to start an OSPIRG chapter at another school. While I applaud the idea, I cannot stand by and allow such hypocritical spending to continue.
In her letter, Hickman points out that her beloved student organization has been involved in a campaign to lower the overall cost of textbooks. How does OSPIRG reconcile the fact that it wants to help the average UO student by lowering textbook costs, while quietly spiriting away our student funds and transferring them into another school’s checkbook?
Furthermore, let’s not forget that no one from OSPIRG has fully explained this situation. Many of my fellow students and I have waited for a response, yet are always greeted with “It is complicated” or “Starting other chapters at Oregon schools is part of having our own chapter.” I say, NO! It is not complicated! If part of having an OSPIRG chapter here on campus means that I personally have to shell out money, under the guise of student funds, they need to tell us that. If part of having an OSPIRG chapter here on campus means that our school is partly responsible for starting chapters at other universities, they need to tell us that. I don’t see the LGBTQA, the College Republicans, the College Democrats, The Student Insurgent, Students for the Ethical Treatment of Animals or any other politically active group on campus requesting thousands of dollars to start chapters at other universities. Why OSPIRG?
Hickman claims that there are more than 100 OSPIRG members who impact 20 times that many students here on campus. If so many people are involved, why doesn’t anybody know what is going on?
I am not calling for the banishment of OSPIRG. I am simply requesting that an organization claiming to help better serve our campus do exactly that. If you want to be fully funded, you have to be prepared to explain why. I commend the ideals of our OSPIRG chapter, yet am ashamed of its shady and hypocritical behavior.