The Spectrum student newspaper has become the subject of review by a newly formed Undergraduate Student Association committee that student leaders say is designed to explore the budgets of organizations that receive funding from SA.
The SA Senate Allocation Review Committee was created at a Senate meeting last month and chose The Spectrum to be its first, and for the time being, only project.
According to Dan Smith, chairman of the committee, the Spectrum investigation was spurred mainly by the fact that publication receives a portion of SA's yearly budget, but no other student associations contribute to the publication.
"All of us as senators found out all the other student governments weren't paying for it," said Smith, "so we wondered, why were we?"
Erin Shultz, editor in chief of The Spectrum, said she feels the move comes as a response to particularly tumultuous relations between the paper and the government. She said the newspaper's opinion pages have included several hard-edged critiques of the government in the past year, and she believes the investigation is a direct result of the paper's coverage.
"I have no problem with them wanting to look into how we run this business," Shultz said. "They say it is to look into our financials. I think since we're the only group being investigated, this smacks of censorship."
Mark Goodman, executive director of the Student Press Law Center, an Arlington, Va.-based group that provides information and legal assistance to student publications, said the review committee itself walks the fine defining line of control.
"One can argue that simply having to submit to this review process in itself is a form of censorship," Goodman said.
Shultz said since only undergraduate students work for the publication and the undergraduate body constitutes the majority of readership, SA should not have a problem with providing funds, particularly because undergraduates make up approximately 67 percent of the student population.
"Our coverage is geared clearly toward undergraduates. Our staff is run completely by undergraduates," she said. "I think it's fair what they're paying for."
The $30,000 The Spectrum receives annually comes from a student subscription fee, which previously was collected through the $69.75 Mandatory Student Activity Fee. In the past, the subscription fee of $1 was voted on by undergraduate students in the general referendum to approve the Mandatory Student Activity Fee. For the 2003-04 school year, the Student Subscription Fee constitutes 1.3 percent of the $2,329,071 total SA budget.
However, new State University of New York guidelines discount the referendum process for student governments, placing the decision to fund The Spectrum solely in the hands of SA, rather than the student body. These new guidelines make all referenda non-binding for the student governments.
Besides SA, the five other associations that together represent the complete student body are the Graduate Student Association, the Graduate Management Association, the Student Bar Association, Dental Student Association and the Medical School Student Association, none of which provide funding to the paper.
"That's not fair to undergraduates that they're the only ones paying," said Smith.
The budget evaluation provides a six-week timeline in which The Spectrum staff must seek out other sources of funding and present these sources to the review board.
Smith said the reason The Spectrum is first on the evaluation list is that in the past, the publication has sought SA out for money in the spring.
"We're trying to hedge all that, to get it together early so that The Spectrum, come spring, is not unprepared," he said. "The most optimal outcome is to see The Spectrum exist in the form that it does, serving all constituents fairly."
Yet Shultz said she believes the newspaper has been singled out, as Smith told her Sub-Board I would also be subject to the same manner of investigation.
That appeared not to be the case this week.
"They were untruthful once in telling me that Sub-Board was also being investigated, making me seriously question whether their motives are purely financial," she said.
Sub-Board I Treasurer Ariel Arroyo said he had not yet heard of evaluation plans, and was under the impression that monetary issues had subsided after SA absorbed University Union Activities Board during the summer of 2003 and it became SA Entertainment.
"I can't see why they would want to do this again," said Arroyo.
Smith, who serves as finance director of Sub-Board I, said the committee was merely thinking of reviewing the organization. He also said his involvement with both organizations might be a conflict of interest.
"We're not evaluating (Sub-Board) yet," said Smith. "We may leave that up to the board of directors to do that themselves."
According to Mark Jacobs, a member of the newly formed allocation review committee, the group may continue on to review other organizations that receive SA funding, or it may become defunct.
"Right now we're solely focused on Spectrum," Jacobs said. "We're not getting ahead of ourselves. We have not even talked about what we are doing next. Our goal is to make sure that The Spectrum can become financially stable and will be able to continue for years and years to come, and make sure they have all the resources they need to survive."
Shultz said the timeline for the evaluation leads her to believe decisions have already been reached, since by Jan. 12, The Spectrum must present the review board with alternative potential revenue for their case to be looked upon favorably.
"It's as if this hearing is totally unnecessary," she said. "In my mind, whatever's going to be decided has already been decided."
According to Dan Smith, the committee wants The Spectrum to retain as much independence as possible.
"Everybody on the committee, to my knowledge, thinks that The Spectrum is a very integral part of the university. We're not looking for any type of editorial control," he said. "That bears nothing on the committee's decision at the end. This is, again, fiscal responsibility."
But Goodman, of the Student Press Law Center, said a student newspaper's role makes it different from other on-campus organizations.
"The student newspaper is unique in that it is covering the student body from which it's channeling its funding," said Goodman. "The school has no obligation to fund the paper - but once they've made a decision to do that, they can't then go back and attempt to reverse that based on content," said Goodman.
Goodman said that the First Amendment does not prohibit a student government's right to choose where to spend money, but protects against acts meant to silence expression.
"We strongly urge student publications to be as financially self-sufficient as possible," said Goodman.
Shultz said she recognizes the inherent problems in receiving money from a body the publication covers and would like to see The Spectrum financially independent, but such a move would ultimately put the paper in debt.
"It's a dangerous path to walk down when you start forming financial ties to someone you cover," said Shultz. "We do that once with SA, and I have enough problems with that. Muscling us into doing this with five other student governments - which would barely make a dent in our financial situation - is beyond reason."
Debbie Smith, business manager of The Spectrum, said the publication could not stay afloat for an extended period of time without the SA money, which constitutes a little over 12 percent of The Spectrum's $253,000 budget.
"I don't think the paper would make it without that money," said Debbie Smith. "We need the students to pay a subscription fee because we're only funded by advertising."
According to representatives of the Graduate Management Association and the Graduate Student Association, proportionally equal funding from these groups would be unsubstantial compared to what SA can provide due to the size of its budget.
"(SA) can't control who reads it," said Lorrie Muldoon, treasurer of GMA. "I can understand their reasoning."
Yet at the same time, she said GMA has minimal funds to offer anyone at this point.
"Our whole budget for the entire year is $15,000," said Muldoon. "We are scraping ourselves."
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
