At 7 p.m. Wednesday, the Associated Student Government Senate began its annual $50,000 Student Activities Finance Committee appeals “Funding Senate.” At 8 p.m., student organizations presented their funding appeals. At 9 p.m., presentations continued.
10 p.m. 11 p.m. 12 a.m.
By 1 a.m., it became clear that zero dollars and zero cents would be allocated by the end of the night.
The meeting was intended to provide student organizations the opportunity to appeal the more than $2.7 million in SAFC allocations to try to secure additional funding if they were not satisfied with their allotment.
Around midnight, Senate leadership appeared to realize the meeting would not hit its 1 a.m. cutoff. Starting then, senators devoted nearly one hour of debate to a $5,500 appeal from Young Americans for Freedom, a conservative campus organization. At 1 a.m., senators faced a budget overrun of about $8,600 with no end in sight to the cut period to meet the $50,000 total allocation limit.
Finally, Weinberg junior and Speaker of the Senate Kaitlyn Salgado-Alvarez called an audible and pushed the remainder of the debate to next Wednesday. Senators exited Technological Institute Room L211, tired and disappointed by the lack of progress.
For Members Only was poised to receive the greatest sum of the evening — $11,600 for next year’s Dillo Day Second Stage, an intercollegiate cookout and a speaker event. Following closely behind were Mock Trial with $10,000 for tournament travel and lodging expenses and Rainbow Alliance with $6,800 to host speakers and a formal.
“I want to remind any student senator, as we participate today, that every dollar you make into an allocation is a dollar that isn’t going to another group,” Medill sophomore and SAFC co-Chair John Sisco said. “We want each dollar to go as far as possible for each group that receives it.”
The Senate received about $109,000 in total appeals requests from 17 student groups. Senators will have to pare down that number to $50,000.
Senators questioned Young Americans for Freedom’s $3,000 and $2,500 funding requests for a Fall and Spring speaker, respectively. More than 150 demonstrators protested a lecture by anti-LGBTQ+ activist James Lindsay hosted by YAF and NU College Republicans in 2023.
Medill sophomore and Senator Aidan Klineman, an opinion columnist for The Daily, said that while he disagreed with the speaker at YAF’s most recent event, ASG should continue funding the group to allow for civil discourse.
McCormick junior and Senator Jack Doheny echoed Klineman’s sentiment, arguing YAF should continue to obtain funding — despite not being a member of the group.
“As someone who’s been (at YAF), I had a very pleasant, cordial debate,” Doheny said. “We’re casting a really heavy stone at these people and criticizing them for bringing in faulty speakers. … If we’re not giving them money to bring in better speakers, we’re limiting them to a pool of lower-quality speakers.”
McCormick junior and YAF co-Chair Caleb Nunes, a Daily opinion contributor, said speakers who “push inflammatory rhetoric” are not what the club is looking for in the future.
The debate over YAF’s request continued for nearly one hour as multiple senators raised concerns about the organization’s impact on campus culture. By the end of the night, YAF was set to receive just $500.
To kick off the marathon meeting, ASG passed a series of revisions to its Code of Conduct. Among them was one provision which stipulates that any impeachment proceedings involving civil rights disputes must be approved by NU’s Office of Civil Rights and Title IX Compliance before being sent to ASG’s parliamentarian. ASG also revised the Code to prohibit derogatory terms against members of the same groups recognized by OCR.
The policy changes come after Medill senior and Resilient NU Senator Coby Potischman filed articles of impeachment against Weinberg sophomore and College Republicans Senator Hunter Gracey for allegedly using derogatory terms in the presence of multiple ASG members.
It remains unclear when the Senate will vote on the impeachment, though it could occur next Wednesday.
With about $8,600 remaining to cut, the Senate will convene Wednesday, June 4, to complete the appeals allocations. It is not typical for ASG to meet during Reading Week; Wednesday’s meeting was scheduled to be the quarter’s last.
Correction: A previous version of this story misattributed a quote said by Jack Doheney to Aidan Klineman. The Daily regrets this error.
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