Argle-Bargle!
A couple of follow-up points to Dan and Tyler’s comments:
Firstly, something quite similar to this happened two years ago. The principle of “viewpoint neutrality” as applied to student programs means that the PFC cannot, when deciding whether and how much to fund a student group, use that group’s politics as a factor in their decision. Sundry PFCs have misread this to mean that student programs themselves cannot express opinions on political issues. One glance around the campus will convince you, however, that they are not enforcing this rule with much vigilance; it is kept in a closet and dusted off every so often in an attempt to defund this humble little publication.
Second, the business about being “advantageous to the cultural or physical development of students”. I had supposed this to be a no-brainer, since having a wider variety of viewpoints discussed and explicated on campus surely meets the first of these criteria. (As for the second, students are welcome to come and carry boxes of issues around.) But I wasn’t thinking carefully enough. The PFC is considering only the “cultural development” of students participating in the program, not the consumers of the end product. Hence the concern that we are not hiring enough Marxists.
Leave aside the fact that the OC has a wide variety of more or less sane political persuasions among its ranks (to the extent that we might need some kind of affirmative-action program for Republicans here) and the mission statement is carefully worded to admit conservatives, libertarians, classical-liberals, and virtually anyone who has a bone to pick with the frequently bizarre milieu of Eugene. If the PFC is going to apply this standard to everybody (viewpoint neutrality, remember) then there will be no student programs left. I for one have not derived the slightest benefit from the Ornithology Club. At our friendly little chat earlier today, I asked how, then, we were supposed to bring about the cultural development of people who don’t volunteer to write for us. Answer came there none.
Ultimately, this is the first salvo of what will be an interesting few months. Updates will be forthcoming.
Are they aware that MEChA won’t hire outside La Raza? They do know that right? Right? Wait, MEChA is hates whitey and capitalism, that’s very cultural. I keep forgetting.
Quick! Recruit more Asian-americans who voted for Browne in 2000 and Kerry in 2004. Diversify diversify!
Let me get this straight. At first, they said we weren’t culturally advantageous due to our “material.” In other words, our content was somehow in violation of an Oregon statute by their flagrantly unconstitutional reading of it.
Now they’ve changed their story to assumptions about our hiring practices?
I wouldn’t bet on it, but ’tis a nice pipedream.
amen, sister.
also, i’d just like to point out that back in the day, there was even a female publisher who was a registered democrat. it was a scandal!
someday, perhaps, the kids who choose to participate in student government will learn to read.
good luck.