The MultiCultural Student Coalition appealed to the Student Judiciary Tuesday, accusing the Student Services Finance Committee of legal issues including due process violations.
SSFC denied MCSC funding eligibility in late September partly because of what SSFC members said were intentional policy violations. In an internal appeal directly to the committee Oct. 21, SSFC voted not to give MCSC an additional hearing.
ASM bylaws say appeals should go first to SSFC and then to the Student Judiciary. In revised standing rules passed earlier this year, however, SSFC mandated that appeals should go straight to the Student Judiciary.
MCSC representatives highlighted the resulting discrepancy between standing rules and bylaws as an example of a violation in due process rights, saying the organization received different information from various sources about how appeals should be submitted.
SSFC Chair David Vines said he acknowledged the incongruity when MCSC members brought it to his attention, and as a result, he gave the organization an additional week to submit a new brief.
MCSC also contended SSFC members were not sufficiently educated about a 2012 intentional policy violations from the Committee on Student Organizations. CSO froze MCSC funding for a year, stating the organization purposely submitted contracts in way that allowed them to bypass a required bidding process.
Vines said MCSC disregarded the chance to inform members about the policy violation in its application for eligibility.
The eligibility application asks whether the organization has violated laws or policies, with instructions to explain the answer. Vines said MCSC had written one word: “No.”
“We said “no” on the eligibility application to make very clear that we do not believe that we intentionally violated policy,” MCSC representative Olivia Wick-Bander said. “It was not because we were underprepared”
Vines said he tried to give MCSC “the benefit of the doubt” throughout the whole process and advised the organization how to rewrite their brief when they submitted it to SSFC a second time.
Wick-Bander said Vines suggested she remove all but one of the complaints, which she considers censorship.
MCSC requested actions including an affirmation of SSFC’s violations and a subsequent eligibility hearing that would go through the chancellor.
Student Judiciary will make a decision about the case within 10 business days.
