The news Monday that the ASUO Constitution Court ruled to boot two members of the Programs Finance Committee, both who essentially declared themselves above the law at a Feb. 1 budget hearing for the Oregon Commentator, marked one of the first occasions that the editorial board could applaud the actions of a branch of the ASUO. The court has done right.
The court ruled that former PFC members Eden Cortez, Dan Kieffer and Mason Quiroz “acted in willful defiance of viewpoint neutrality,” a response to Commentator Publisher Dan Atkinson’s petition filed Feb. 7.
The final judgment removes Quiroz from the PFC and Cortez from the PFC and the ASUO Student Senate. The action also affirms Kieffer’s resignation — thankfully, he already left his PFC post last month.
In his writing for the court, Chief Justice Randy Derrick stated that Cortez had said: “Of course we can look at content in determining a group’s value. Otherwise this job could be done by robots.” A statement Derrick wrote says this quote “clearly demonstrates that Cortez was considering content in his analysis of the Oregon Commentator outside of the bounds set by viewpoint neutrality.”
Cortez told the Emerald 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. He said he has reviewed minutes from the meeting and can verify an audience member made the statement, not he.
“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 the statement is “not an exact quote,” but said Cortez did say 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.
While we cannot deny that the court
has made a sloppy error by falsely attributing a quote to Cortez, we must point out
the blatantly obvious. In this case, Cortez’s
actions speak far louder than someone
else’s words.
In the meetings, Cortez willingly attempted to defund the Commentator on the basis of
its content rather than its fiscal responsibility — he was the physical manifestation of
the phrase “lack of viewpoint neutrality” —
a point that the court has already made in
the decision. Derrick stated that Cortez
erred because he “did not provide a
budgetary rationale for disapproving the (Commentator’s) budget.”
If Cortez wants to appeal, he is more than welcome, but he would be wiser to take
few shreds of dignity with him, leave his position and follow Quiroz and Kieffer out of
the ASUO.

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