John Hanacek/Guardian
The three-week media freeze — ordered by A.S. President Utsav Gupta on Feb. 19 — was lifted at Wednesday’s A.S. council meeting, after the council voted 5-13-5 to fail a last-minute amendment that proposed a government speech model. The model would have allowed the council to fund — through advertisements — only the media organizations they deemed to uphold the UCSD Principles of Community.
According to the A.S. Standing Rules, a funding freeze is automatically lifted by Wednesday of Week 10 if the council doesn’t pass legislation that counters that rule. By default, council returned to funding media organizations with the same system as before.
Gupta froze all media funds after a racial slur was aired on an episode of Koala TV, preventing campus media publications from accessing their Winter and Spring Quarter funds. He then chartered a committee to discuss new media guidelines that prevent funding hate speech.
Committee members considered two main alternatives: a government-speech model and an opt-out model, which would allow students to remove their student fee funding from certain publications.
The committee failed to make an official recommendation or submit any written legislation, with the exception of a Standing Rules amendment — submitted by Vice President of Finance and Resources Peter Benesch — to implement the government-speech model.
Benesch’s model found support from students who called for the council to defund the Koala and UC Student Regent delegate Jesse Cheng.
“We stand for this protocol because this issue is an issue of diversity and not really an issue of free speech and even less an issue of the Constitution,” Cheng said. “If it does come down to legality, it’s the Supreme Court’s responsibility to constitutionality — you don’t have to worry about that here.”
The amendment also created backlash among committee members who were not aware that Benesch had prepared a piece of legislation to present. Members felt that he had been working on the amendment behind their backs.
Gupta explained that this was not the case.
“There was never an agreement to not have legislation or not use PowerPoint, as some people have said,” Gupta said. “There was no shady business or working behind people’s backs. All of these are scare tactics used by the majority to attempt to silence the minority. These ideas of a possible evil A.S., threats of litigation, or censorship — they’re unfair arguments, scare tactics for people who want to undercut the legislation.”
He added that concerns that the government-speech model could be abused were unfounded.
“The A.S. Council is moderate and would continue to substantially fund media organizations,” he said.
Warren Senator Alyssa Wing, who voted in favor of the proposed legislation, said recent racially motivated events on campus created a need for the council to change the system.
“We’ve really been urged to do something to uphold the Principles of Community,” Wing said.
According to Benesch, various Supreme Court cases supported the legality of the government-speech model.
“Essentially, this idea supposes that we will close the open forum where everyone can come and ask for money and we have to distribute in a viewpoint-neutral manner, and move to a model where the A.S. will have to provide a large amount of funding through advertising initiatives,” Benesch said.
Koala Editor in Chief Kris Gregorian said he opposes the government-speech model because it forces publications to abide by the Principles of Community or lose funding.
Although Wednesday’s final decision returned the funding model to its original system, the committee also discussed implementing an opt-out model. This model would allow students to request for the portion of their student fees that go toward certain publications to be removed on moral grounds. With the current system, students who request that their money be removed are reimbursed from the A.S. General Fund instead of their chosen organization.
According to Benesch, UCSD legal counsel Dan Park said the opt-out model was illegal because it allowed students to fiscally discriminate based on content.
Transfer Senator and committee member Adam Powers said he favors the opt-out model, since it would have allowed students to vote with their dollars.
“We are empowering students to make a decision with how the campus is run,” he said.
The committee also discussed improving the original process by allowing print media orgs to request funding on a rolling basis.
Associate Vice President of Student Organizations Andrew Ang said he prefers adding a line item that creates an emergency fund from which media orgs could withdraw.
Park declined to comment.
According to David Blair-Loy, director of American Civil Liberties Union’s San Diego branch, both the government-speech and opt-out models violate the First Amendment since they discriminate against the press as a form of speech.
“There are numerous student orgs that engage in all forms of protected speech that aren’t print,” Blair-Loy said. “A.S. has funded many forms of controversial speech, and they can’t treat student press differently from the way they treat other student orgs. The First Amendment doesn’t just protect freedom of speech, it protects freedom of the press.”
He said that these two proposed systems violate Section 61.13 of the UC Regents policy, which states that student government must provide funding on a viewpoint-neutral basis.
“I never say preliminarily that I will sue before I do, but if A.S. adopts either of these options, their chance of being litigated will increase exponentially,” Blair-Loy said.
Gupta said he hoped the council would not bow under threats of litigation. He said although council has no definite plans to change media guidelines, outside pressure to fight against funding hate speech will only increase, especially in light of the UC Board of Regents working to apply a form of the government-speech model systemwide.
Readers can contact Angela Chen at shchen@ucsd.edu.
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“crowd-pleasing alternatives”?
i think you meant to say “angry-mob-pleasing alternatives”
All that jazz and the only tangible difference is the cessation of live student-run television.
As there was a large discussion about this in the other articles about a good part of this… I’ll refer back to that, but simply say that it was unanimously agreed upon that you can’t have an ‘opt-out’ system for specific media organizations. You COULD have the ability to opt-out for the complete student fee, but you can’t single the organizations out like that.
“Benesch’s model found support from students who called for the council to defund the Koala and UC Student Regent delegate Jesse Cheng.”
Students wanted to defund the Student Regent? Really? That’s what the sentence says.
Hey. Thanks for this post. I cruise alot of blogs just to see what I can find. I liked this write up you did and was just wondering if you have a subscriber page so I can link to it so I can read it at a later date? I did not see one – am I just overlooking it?
Jack
Hearing Jesse Cheng speak last night was absolutely astonishing. He said so many bullshit things I really fear for the UC System when someone as brain dead as him can become Student Regent. Did he get to travel down to San Diego on the UC’s dime too?
I would like to say I was at the committee meetings and everyone in the committee had agreed to not show a powerpoint at the AS meeting. Additionally, EVERYONE in the committee except Peter had agreed to keep the current funding model with some improvements: (1) making it easier for media orgs. to be created and gain funding. Peter never talked about his legislation in the committee. The leadership denied the census of the media council’s recommendations because we didn’t propose legislation(which they were not commissioned to do). Additionally, Peter attempted to manipulate everyone into voting on his legislation and not voting for what the committees recommendations were. And, I know some one recorded the whole fiasco. So instead of reading this article that doesn’t even begin to show what went down on wednesday I recommend you find it.
Alright, time to clear up a few things:
I have several small gripes with this article, such as the use of “allowed” (without qualification) in the second sentence to refer to something that is likely illegal and the statement in the third paragraph that the funding freeze affected Spring Quarter funds (which have not even been allocated yet). These alone I would have ignored. However, I have serious grievances about three inaccuracies that contribute to the already-plentiful misinformation on campus:
First, the government speech model would not have “allowed” A.S to hold media organizations to the Principles of Community, as that would be blatantly illegal. As FIRE stated in its February 23 letter to Chancellor Fox:
“Any determination by you or your administration that the Principles of Community are not merely aspirational, but rather comprise mandatory beliefs, attitudes, and demeanors, would unquestionably violate the First Amendment.” (http://thefire.org/article/11598.html)
In fact the entire reason this model could even be considered as a viable loophole is because the only standard on which A.S. could base their funding under it would be the effectiveness of each publication as an advertising channel. Now, we all know Peter Benesch meant to use it to kill The Koala, but the way the model is described here is simply incorrect.
Next, it is inaccurate to say that the media funding committee “failed” to submit legislation, as their charge was not to do so. Perhaps it is the case, as I have since been told, that A.S.-charged committees usually submit legislation, but members of this committee with whom I spoke were surprised on Wednesday night to have legislation expected of them. Regardless, Benesch’s amendment is not an “exception,” as is written here. He submitted that legislation as a member of A.S. council; it was not a product of the committee. (That controversy is described later in the article, though it is a bit one-sided, reporting, for example, Utsav Gupta’s quote that there was no “agreement” against the use of PowerPoint but disregarding the comment he had – casually, perhaps – made to the committee to the effect that PowerPoint would not be necessary.)
Finally, the brief mention of Kris Gregorian grossly misrepresents his reaction and furthers the misinformation about the government speech model. Paragraph seventeen of the article is simply untrue for the reasons I described above regarding that model. Moreover, the statement would seem obvious to the uninformed reader as the representation of Gregorian’s opinion is simply a restatement of the erroneous description of the government speech model in paragraph one. He had many reasons to oppose the model, but he does at least understand it.
How was this even put on the table… letting student government choose what is acceptable and what is not… That is a DIRECT violation of the 1st amendment, and is just simply the worst idea that I have seen from student government… and they have A LOT of bad ideas.
“We’ve really been urged to do something to uphold the Principles of Community,” what the hell kind of BS is that… who the hell is student government to decide what the “principals of community”… People need to WAKE UP and realize that in 4 short years you will no longer be in the protected walls of UCSD, and will be in the REAL WORLD where speech is free, uncensored, and guess what… PEOPLE DEAL WITH IT!!!!
Dear UCSD AS- Get the hell out of the censorship business, if I don’t want to read something… then I wont read it. Do I care that $1 of my student fees per quarter goes to a rag like the KOALA… NO!!!
What I think is bull shit is that we pay these AS douchers … take a look at the AS budget for yourself, Gutsav will be taking home $10,000 this year, and every other VP will be taking home varying amounts. Can I opt out of paying that? Cause if I cant, sign me up.
Real Bullshit Real Action
Just because you stop calling it a public forum and call it something else does not mean it is no longer a public forum. If all of the media orgs are still funded and encouraged to voice their views on various issues, then it is still a public forum. You can’t turn an apple into an orange by calling it an orange.
Also, it was clearly an attempt to defund the Koala due to content. There is not a federal judge in this country dumb enough to be fooled by that. I am astounded that UCSD’s lawyers actually advised Mr. Gupta that this is legal. I almost wish it had passed, just to see a federal court mercilessly tear into UCSD’s lawyers. You can’t just create technicalities and use them to subvert the First Amendment.
UCSD Counsel: “But it isn’t a public forum, because we’re calling it government speech and basing funding decisions on advertising. Only we are for some reason excluding the Koala, even though they would get the most funding if it were really based on advertising. But since we’re not calling it a public forum, we can require publications to abide by the principles of community or else lose funding.”
Court: “Apparently you think the First Amendment is an inconvenience you can scheme around. ***Bitch slap*** NO! you can’t do that, you morons!”
So the drunken racists win. It’s time the students do something about KOALA.
Nikki,
If by “something,” you mean calling it out as being racist and condemning it for that, then I agree.
“So the drunken racists win. It’s time the students do something about KOALA.”
Yet another idiot who thinks the feelings of oversensitive whiners should take precedence over the First Amendment.
And why is it, right before censorious jerks decide to silence everyone, they always claim “this has nothing to do with free speech”, as if an attempt to silence media organizations is not a First Amendment issue? Even more pathetic is the repeated labelling of such protected speech as “Hate Speech” as if the United States Constitution carves out an exception for such language. This is not Canada; citizens are not dragged before Orwellian-named Human Right Commissions because an individual has said or written something with which another person has taken offense.
College kids not to come out of their PC cocoons and realize that a right to not be offended does not exist and understand that continued insistence that it does is injurious to the rights of everyone. Jerks like Gupta need to quit pandering to the oversensitive among us and instead stand up for everyone’s speech rights instead of tring to devise clever ways to censor speech that can somehow survive judicial scrutiny.
“College kids not to come out of their PC cocoons
That should read “College kids need to come out of their PC cocoons”
Bob, if you don’t think the Koala qualifies as “hate speech,” you’ve clearly never read a single issue. I think it’s you that needs to come out of the cocoon.
Kenny,
He never said it wasn’t. I don’t know what he thinks about it, but it doesn’t matter anyway. Hate speech is out there, and it can’t legally be suppressed. Suppressing it wouldn’t do any good anyway. We all know that there are racists out there, and that wouldn’t change if hate speech were outlawed. The only thing you accomplish by outlawing hate speech is that it becomes harder to tell who the racists are.
Sunlight is the best disinfectant. Let racists identify themselves. Let’s me know who I shouldn’t bother listening to.
I can’t believe you guys are still bitching and whining even though the media org funding has been restored. Go study for finals or something.
I like the outcome so far, It reverts to the previous system. But since when is an opt out model thought to be un-constitutional?? This funding model is based on individual choice, what’s wrong with that?? Does that mean that I have to subscribe to every news paper in the world in order to avoid discriminating based on speech???!! That’s absurd!! There’s other reasons why opt out models won’t work*, but this is not it.
* of course I can’t think of any reasons other than the fact that it will clutter up your tuition bill.
and just because some dipshit from that local ACLU office says something, does not mean it is true.
and just because some dipshit from the local ACLU office says something, does not mean it is true.
Joey,
There is no question that allowing students to opt out of the entire student media fee is perfectly fine. It is unclear whether it’s legal to allow students to opt out of one particular publication. It isn’t clear to me that it would be illegal to do that. If someone knows of a precedent that would indicate that it is, I would be interested to hear about it. It seems like it would probably be legal, but I haven’t looked into that question at all. I doubt it would make much difference anyway, as most students are probably too apathetic to bother doing that anyway.
Also, the ACLU’s attorneys are more likely than the university’s attorneys to be right about this. University attorneys rarely litigate First Amendment issues. It is a tiny fraction of their job, and it does not come up that often. ACLU attorneys litigate First Amendment issues for a living, and they usually win First Amendment cases. The ACLU is much more familiar with the relevant case law. I’m sure that UCSD’s lawyers are competent, but they don’t eat, sleep, and breathe First Amendment case law like ACLU attorneys do.
Person,
It sounds as though you’re upset at how this turned out, and that you came here to whine about it. Which makes your post deliciously ironic.
I’m actually fine with the decision. But I also think that the 3 week freeze was a good idea in that it brought more scrutiny to the censorship issue in the first place. I mean, the 5-13 vote shows that most of AS is not willing to moderate press content, so they’re obviously not all out of their minds. I usually don’t quote from the Godfather, but something Clemenza said comes to mind when asked by Michael about whether there would be a gang war:
“These things gotta happen every five years or so, ten years. Helps to get rid of the bad blood. Been ten years since the last one.”
It’s best to talk about these issues to clear things up than not talk about them. At least we know where people stand.
I just don’t think there’s anything to get bent out of shape about anymore.
Well,I can see where you’re coming from. But without the freeze we may not have seen the noose or the hood. Also, perhaps other publications could have used their funds to print an issue containing condemnation of the Koala’s content. At any rate, the whole incident certainly started a conversation.