Editorial

Whose Marketplace?

As the Supreme Court ponders the fate of the incidental fee system, its proponents are fighting to justify their existence and making little sense.

For the most part, the existence of the UO student government (the ASUO, if you keep up to date on such things) is a fairly abstract fact of life to the 17,000-odd enrolled students, the majority of whom are fairly indifferent to the actions of their "leaders."

As long as the student body complies with the current arrangement, approximately $163 per term in incidental fees-the ASUO has been content to go about its business, invisible to the students that make their jobs possible. This arrangement, however, is in jeopardy.

These are heady times for student governments at public universities the nation over; the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin v. Southworth, currently being argued before the Supreme Court, threatens to upend the system by changing the rules governing the allocation of student fees. (For a more on the case, see "The Right to Remain Silent," p. 12)

Like any popular issue, the conflict can be safely broken down into two distinct, if imprecise, parties: those pro-fee and those anti. (More complex issues tend less toward clear lines, and are generally less popular.) Advocates of the current system understandably want to preserve the system that has served them thus far. In arguing for the incidental fee system, their rhetoric is impassioned and persuasive, their logic is not.

From hack Ol' Dirty Emerald columnists to EMU Director Dusty "Tassels" Miller to "friend of the court" briefs filed with regard to the Southworth case, the operative phrase is the "free marketplace of ideas" that the fee system purportedly enables. By requiring students to support groups that may be "unpopular" (the definition of this word generally being the user's pet issue), the whole student body is enriched, educated, and exposed to new ideas. A fair argument-flawed, but arguable.

What happens when a student (University of Wisconsin law student Scott Southworth, for example) decides it is not in his or her best interest to subsidize a particular group? Currently, such a student would not have the freedom to make such a decision.

For the pro- and anti-fee contestants alike, it's an issue of free speech. Southworth's case is that being forced to support groups he does not agree with violates his First Amendment right. Defenders of the fee process claim it is a violation of their First Amendment right not to have access to the fees (his money). This is where the pro-fee argument breaks down.

The hallowed First indeed guarantees a person the right to free expression; it does not guarantee the right to speak for someone else, or to put a fine point on it, spend their money without their permission.

And whose speech is truly at stake? The students', of course. Then who are the students? Depending on whom you ask, you'll get different answers. The pro-fee side appears to claim it is those who are actively involved in the student government-an uncontestably infinitesimal number of people. The anti-fee side defines the students as all students.

Those pro-fee make no convincing argument as to why they are the students that really matter it is an indefensible argument, except to contend that their rights would be jeopardized without your money. Put in these terms, their position falls apart.

Pro-fee advocates liken the incidental fee system to real-world taxes, where the government decides what is in a citizen's best interest. This is a bad analogy: federal and state governments fund programs integral to structure of society. The ASUO funds extracurricular activities. Does the federal government subsidize P-FLAG, the NAACP, NOW, and other such groups? No. Have they crumbled? Hardly.

If a program is truly important to the student body, individual students will donate not only their time, but also their money. Where there's a will, there's a way; pro-fee mouthpieces currently seem to be lacking in the will department. There's a term for what student government is: tyranny of the minority. Coercing the student body at large to fund the recreational activities of a clique-ish minority is not only unnecessary, but unfair, and by no means a right. The final decision has yet to be handed down, though the agitated temperament of the pro-fee faction may be revelatory of what's to come, perhaps you will soon have control over how your own student fees.