In an unprecedented move, UW-Madison Chancellor John Wiley reversed a decision by the Associated Students of Madison, thereby granting funding eligibility to Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan. Representatives of MEChA and ASM were notified Wednesday of the chancellor's decision.
MEChA was initially denied eligibility by the Student Services Finance Committee in September. The group then appealed the decision to the Student Judiciary, who determined that some SSFC representatives used personal ideology in their ruling and granted MEChA a hearing in front of the ASM Student Council, where eligibility was again denied. MEChA then appealed to Wiley, who ruled Wednesday that they were eligible to receive funding. The MEChA budget will now return to SSFC for a budget hearing.
\The system that we have for segregated fees does work,"" Gladys Reyes, MEChA member and member of SSFC, said. ""It's a system of checks and balances. After a lengthy process, justice was served.""
Despite this, some MEChA members said they were frustrated by the process.
""A lot of people on SSFC were playing personal politics,"" Darrell Balderrama, a member and former co-chair of MEChA, said. ""My beef with ASM is they haven't been able to be objective as possible. Several names come to the top of my mind ... they'd jump off Bascom to make sure we were denied eligibility.""
Roman Patzner, chair of SSFC disagreed. He said the committee served its purpose and the chancellor's intervention ultimately will hurt the segregated fee process.
""The process is flawed if the chancellor can arbitrarily overturn the decision of student government,"" Patzner said. ""Emotion played a lot into this decision. People found it difficult to say no.
""No chancellor has ever completely reversed the decision of student government,"" he said."" ""This basically says that we're incompetent ... his decision sets student fee autonomy backwards.""
Despite such sentiments, Balderrama said he hopes the problems between MEChA and SSFC can be bridged.
""Power was stripped [from SSFC.] They will be a little mad. Hopefully they will remain as objective as possible when looking at our budget,"" he said.
MEChA will now present their budget request before SSFC. Upon the committee's approval, the request will go before the ASM Student Council.
""We've fought half the battle,"" Balderrama said. ""I hope the council can keep their personal ideology out of it and make an objective decision. Our organization's sole mission is to educate people. We have to prove again that we do good work, that we're an asset to the campus.\
