Since UW-Madison is currently the only Big Ten institution that does not offer a form of legal help to its students, the Student Services Finance Committee added $50,000 to the budget at the end of last semester intended to fund Student Legal Services.
At their Wednesday meeting, the Associated Students of Madison removed this potential funding from their budget.
ASM Chair Carmen Goséy proposed to remove funding for the service because she said not enough research has been done to show specifics of the proposal.
“We just don’t know some of the limitations on the services,” Goséy said. “We can’t say for example if there is a limit on the number of times or hours students can use these services.”
Goséy said there should not be an increase in student segregated fees without a concrete proposal in place.
“Our peers should not be taxed for an idea. We need to be able to actually show them what the services can be used for,” Goséy said. “Because we don’t know the parameters, we don’t want to throw an arbitrary number on it.”
Student Council Representative Brooke Evans, who initially supported the creation of Student Legal Services, said that before they request this increase in funding there needs to be more research on what services currently exist at other universities and evaluate the needs of students.
“We’re building something that has not existed before,” Evans said. “We need to survey the needs of students and take inventory of services that exist at other schools in the UW System and other Big Ten schools.”
Evans said she hopes a future task force will provide more information about what legal services would be available to students. She also discussed access concerns for undocumented students since civic legal services cannot represent undocumented students.
“We do not want to rush the legislation and get students hopes up for services that we will not be able to provide,” she said
