It is a damn shame that a branch of our student government needs to be dismantled in order to ensure a fair budget hearing for campus publications, but here we are. This delay is exactly what the doctor ordered. The ASUO Constitution Court did what needed to be done and they should be commended for temporarily suspending Programs Finance Committee members Eden Cortez, Dan Kieffer and Mason Quiroz, leaving the PFC unable to continue its monkey-business-as-usual.
The fact remains that these three members have admitted in public they are unwilling to maintain viewpoint neutrality. They might as well have said, “We are unfit to be in student government.” Their performance during the Feb. 1 Oregon Commentator budget hearing throws into doubt every budgetary decision that has been made by the PFC this year.
Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, the PFC will have to revisit all of its funding decisions and make some cuts, in order to meet their benchmark. Hopefully they will analyze the role their personal biases, either for or against certain programs, played in their decisions and attempt to apply a more fair standard. This process should, of course, be undertaken without the services of Cortez, Kieffer and Quiroz.
In fact, Quiroz should never have been let back to his post after denouncing the PFC during the Feb. 1 hearing: “I don’t support this part of the branch of student government anymore. … I resign from my position right now. You guys are sleeping with the devil.” But it was he who brought the fight for gender-identity sensitivity to a budget process and warped it into a fight for free speech. He has nobody to blame but himself.
Recent comments by ASUO president Adam Petkun has reassured us that the Commentator will survive this brouhaha one way or another. We should now turn our attention to creating structural change within student government to ensure that we don’t have to deal with this year after year.
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