Student groups that want to receive incidental fees must now pass through another layer of bureaucratic review that has the power to defund them or to revoke their status as student groups.
The Recognition Review Committee will review groups’ missions, goals and by-laws to ensure services are not duplicated by other programs and that they are “advantageous to the cultural or physical development of students,” according to a memorandum from former ASUO President Adam Petkun.
Last year, the student government’s Programs Finance Committee attempted to defund the Oregon Commentator, a campus libertarian opinion journal, by twice rejecting its mission and goals, setting off a battle between those who said it propagated hate speech and those who said it practiced free speech. The debate ended when several members of the PFC were removed and new members approved the journal’s decades-old mission statement.
Despite concerns from some student group leaders that the committee might be used to attack certain groups or that its creation is too abrupt, student government officials assure students that their new committee “is not a witch hunt” and the ASUO is “not out on a mission to create hell.”
The goal of the new committee is to deal with programs that are not fulfilling their mission and goals statements and “to make sure they are worthy of funding,” Programs Administrator and RRC Chairman David Goward said.
Ian Spencer, editor-in-chief of the Commentator, said he is skeptical of “the relevance and compatibility of the student group’s stated mission and goals to the institution’s broader educational mission,” as outlined in the memo.
“I think that could be interpreted liberally,” Spencer said. “My gut reaction is that it is an attempt to go after groups like the Commentator.”
In the past, the only punishment was to cut funding for such groups.
Every year, the PFC holds two hearings for each of the 133 student programs. In the first, PFC determines whether to approve a group’s mission and goals. In the second, it looks at funding in light of the group’s accomplishments, membership, services and other factors. At that meeting, the PFC decides how much of the total $5.2 million in student fees to give to the group.
RRC will weed out the groups it determines are not beneficial to students and quicken the PFC process for those it determines are.
“This is completely separate from PFC,” Goward said. “We will grant them admittance into the PFC.”
The PFC still hears mission and goals statements before deciding funding, but it will not be able to decide funding or hear mission and goals for groups already weeded out by the RRC.
“As the chairman, I’m going to require (RRC members) to be non-biased, and anything we do as a committee they need to be (viewpoint neutral),” Goward said.
Former ASUO President Petkun suggested creating the committee because students and administrators spent a lot of time last year “fleshing out the guidelines” on how to hold groups accountable without going through the PFC process and simply defunding them, Petkun said.
One program leader said she is skeptical about the committee because it was created quickly and is far from complete.
“I feel that if they’re going to bring up this idea to streamline or consolidate groups, they should have had the process a little bit more concrete and nailed down,” Student Bar Association Vice President Marisa Balderas said. “I wasn’t given a clear answer on anything.”
According to the Green Tape Notebook’s Clark Document, which governs how to distributes incidental fees: “A proposed decrease in the level of fee support for any Major Program shall not exceed 10 percent of the preceding year’s allocation unless the program voluntarily requests such a reduction.”
But because the RRC only decides which groups will be recognized and not funding levels, it won’t be breaking this rule, Goward said.
“If their mission and goals statements don’t align with the Green Tape Notebook, they will not be able to go in front of the PFC for their budget hearing,” Goward said.
Previously, one ASUO Executive branch employee reviewed mission and goals statements about every three years.
Goward said the five-member committee will have “a heck of a lot more balance of opinion as there was in the old way of approving groups.”
Student groups expressed concern over the lack of an appeals process, prompting ASUO to include the ASUO Constitution Court as a formal appeals option for students filing grievances against the RRC.
“Number one, our top priority is getting that oversight and that grievance policy in place,” Goward said.
Students filing a grievance against any member of agency in the ASUO can also appeal directly to the ASUO president, who will then create a committee to investigate, according to the Green Tape Notebook. Following that decision, students may appeal to the Constitution Court.
Goward said that because each Executive administration may decide whether to continue the RRC, there will be no permanent change to the Green Tape Notebook.
The RRC is still in the process of determining specific functions and procedures, but an updated memo will be provided at Friday’s Programs Council meeting from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. in the Ben Linder Forum, Goward said.

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