Two student organizations moved closer to receiving funding Monday when the Student Services Finance Committee voted in favor of allowing both groups student segregated fee funding eligibility.
Student groups must devote 51 percent of their time offering direct services, or unique and tailorable educational services available to all students, to receive eligibility.
The Campus Women’s Center, an organization focused on addressing oppression against women and women-identified individuals, was granted eligibility after an extensive debate over whether some of its services met the full eligibility requirements.
Rep. Devon Maier said one of the reasons he would vote down the group’s eligibility was because he felt the group’s resource advising library, where students can check out books on a variety of topics affecting women-identified individuals, does not necessarily imply the group directly educates students.
“If you’re given a book and you do nothing with it, you’re not being educated,” Maier said. “It takes your initiative to read the book to be educated. I don’t see an educational component there.”
However, Rep. Ian Malmstadt said he included the library as a direct service because he felt those resources would not be available to students without the group’s efforts to organize them in one place.
The committee voted unanimously to grant eligibility to Movimiento Estudiantil Chican@ de Aztlán de UW-Madison, a group that uses art to encourage political and cultural engagement, with most representatives saying even their most conservative numbers were above the 51 percent service requirement.
