Of Student Funds and the FEC

After years of speculation, the Student Governing Board released the budgets for all political, activist, and religious organizations. The findings, while shocking, come as no surprise. Those familiar with Columbia’s bureaucracy know that left-leaning groups receive preferential treatment. Now there’s proof. Progressive organizations receive an inordinate and imbalanced share of student funds.

Columbia’s three right-of-center clubs receive a total of $1,975 in annual funds, with $1,525 allocated to the College Republicans, $350 to the College Libertarians, and a mere $100 for the College Conservatives. These are unjustifiable figures, considering a recent Spectator poll identified more than 10 percent of the Columbia community as affiliated with the Republican Party. If one includes Columbia’s many unaffiliated conservatives—conservative Democrats and Libertarians—it follows that 20 percent of the campus must subsist annually on $1,975. Where, then, one might ask, is their tuition money going?

The International Socialist Organization, a fringe group of crazed radicals known for violent and disruptive protests, receives $2,000. Yes, you read that right. The group with a handful of members receives more than every right-of-center organization on campus, combined. Apparently “Ahmadinejad Bad, Bush Worse” banners don’t come cheap. Students for Environmental and Economic Justice, a group known for following President Bollinger around campus with “symbolic” balloons or cake, merits a $1,725 budget. That’s slightly less than the $1,825 owed to Amnesty International, but well more than the ACLU’s “modest” $1,100.

Ad-Hoc, Columbia’s “progressive” publication, receives $800, but is nowhere to be found. Students for Choice maxes out at $1,800, while Students Against Imperialism and the Columbia Coalition Against the War are left to fight the U.S. war machine with a minuscule $850 dollars, combined. The Muslim Students Association is technically a “religious” organization, but it has spent part of its outlandish $15,000 budget protesting most Republican events, criticizing Israel, and bringing disgraced “academic” Norman Finkelstein to speak. Finally, the College Democrats make due with a healthy $7,529 budget. Counting just the aforementioned groups, there is a $30,000 ideological differential on a campus that purports to celebrate and promote all types of diversity.

Even then, one of the most troubling figures on the SGB report was not, as one might expect, a budget. It was a co-sponsorship. The SGB governing board awarded the College Democrats $1,680 for their annual campaign trip to Kentucky. God bless the over-priced lawyer and incompetent administrators who convinced the University that this was legal.

For better or for worse, SGB, the College Democrats, and every student government that gave University funds to this trip are Columbia affiliates. Legally, they are beholden to the same tax-exempt status and regulations.

Appendix I of the Columbia University rule book, FACETS, explicitly states:
“Columbia University, as a tax-exempt organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, is prohibited from participating or intervening in any political campaign on behalf of or in opposition to any candidate for public office. Political intervention includes not only making financial contributions but also the publication or distribution of written or oral statements on behalf of or in opposition to a particular candidate. There are no exceptions to this prohibition. Even an insubstantial violation may lead to monetary fines and exposes the University to the possibility of revocation of its tax-exempt status.”

How, then, can we justify giving a University affiliate thousands of dollars in non-profit funds to send dozens of students to a foreign state to actively participate in a partisan campaign? This isn’t a middle school trip to DC. This isn’t some clichéd opportunity to “watch democracy firsthand.” This is electioneering, and the College Democrats agree. “This weekend,” the College Democrat’s blog proudly boasted, “five vans of over sixty Columbia University and Barnard College student activists will hurtle into Lexington, Kentucky as the Columbia University College Democrats launch an army of liberal campaigners into the final days of Kentucky’s gubernatorial race.”

There is no subtlety here. The Columbia University College Democrats, a University affiliate, used student funds to help aid a partisan candidate. In doing so, they used University funds—our tuition and donations—to campaign for and endorse a Democratic candidate. They might not have donated directly to the campaign, but they sure as hell did the next best thing. What’s worse, perhaps, is that this is the third year in which the University has sponsored a College Democrat campaign trip. Seth Flaxman organized the first trip as a junior and voted to fund it the following year as the head of the Columbia College Student Council. Despite the questionable legality, the trip, it seems, has legitimized itself within Columbia’s liberal community.

Of course, this is not to say that clubs shouldn’t encourage their members to get involved with elections. In 2006, members of the College Republicans organized a group to campaign for both Senator Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Congressman Vito Fossella (R-N.Y.). They were, however, just that—members. Every volunteer went as an individual and paid out of pocket. The club supported their desire to get involved, but stood clear of particular candidates and issues. Not one University dollar went toward the effort. The same cannot be said for the Democrats’ “annual” trip.

Is it possible that Columbia’s legal team found a tax-law loophole or phrased things in such a manner so as to avoid endangering our tax-exempt status? Yes, of course. Can they do so with out a tenuous and wholly disingenuous logic? No. However one looks at it, spending student funds to support a partisan candidate is not and will never be acceptable at a non-profit institution.

Chris Kulawik is a Columbia College senior majoring in history and political science. Chris Shrugged runs alternate Wednesdays. Opinion@columbiaspectator.com