Funding compromise on SDS speakers was fair

TO THE EDITOR:

The baseless accusations leveled against opponents of the funding for the Students for a Democratic Society speakers by Julia Etter (“Student Congress’ enmity towards SDS unwarranted,” Nov. 12) necessarily dispensed with the facts surrounding the debate.

First, the organizer of the protest is a member of the Democratic Party — not exactly one of the major constituencies of Carolina Review. Second, not all members of Carolina Review who serve in Congress voted against the appropriation, and congressmen who are not affiliated with Carolina Review did vote against the appropriation.

 The request was heavily scrutinized because when groups request funds to bring speakers to campus, the finance committee is provided with background information on their experience and a basic resume.

This information was not provided by SDS. Does Ms. Etter wish the finance committee and Student Congress not to do due diligence before appropriating thousands of dollars of students’ money? The information that we could gather from searches on the Internet revealed that the three requested speakers were students at UNC-Asheville and members of the Asheville SDS.

The reason why they deserved an honorarium was based on a two-month stay in Colombia. We have students at UNC who have stayed longer in Colombia and could speak without a $667 honorarium. When the SDS was queried as to the validity of this information, it was not refuted.

Congress has appropriated money to bring Stephen Moore (contributing editor of National Review) and Nadine Strossen (former head of the ACLU) to campus, certainly of a higher caliber than students from UNC-Asheville.



Anthony E. Dent

Zach Dexter

Representatives

Student Congress