“We filed an appeal on January 9, and it's been 60 school days since then. Where's our SFC Appeal?”
– Ryan Neibauer, plaintiff

It has been 60 school days since Ryan Neibauer filed an appeal on Jan. 9 to restore $60,000 in funds to the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Wisconsin Public Interest Research Group, which was cut at a Student Association Senate meeting on Dec. 18.

Now, the public advocacy group that combats pollution and homelessness and supports environmental concerns is fighting for a funding appeal in front of the Senate Finance Committee Appeals Committee, a hearing that SFC bylaws mandate must be heard within ten school days of filing an appeal.

According to Sec. XVII (C) of the SFC Bylaws, the Appeals Committee must hold a hearing and present its decision in writing to the SFC Chair and appellant within 10 school days of receiving the appeal. If the Appeals Committee cannot meet within 10 school days, a written explanation must be presented to the SFC chair and the appellant with a timeline for the hearing.

Neither Neibauer nor WISPIRG ever received any written explanation, and it remains unclear when and by whom the appeal will be heard.

Funding vetoed in December

On Dec. 4, SA President Russ Rueden vetoed WISPIRG’s funding because he was not convinced that the organization was a critical service to the campus. He said at the meeting that the group’s services are duplicated elsewhere and that it does little to seek alternative funding in the form of grant writing and fund-raisers.

Rueden argued that with 300 student organizations on campus, it is unreasonable to grant WISPIRG $60,000.

“When we’re already funding student orgs so poorly and WISPIRG is no better or worse than any of them, it is not fair that we give them such a huge amount of funding,” he said. “As great as the organization is, they are not worth $90,000.”

WISPIRG contends that the SA president violated the constitution through viewpoint neutrality and by line item veto.

"We’ve consulted the top legal experts in the country regarding student fee issues. They have confirmed that the violations of the process in this case are unconstitutional," said Neibauer.

Frank Gaura, a parliamentarian who enforces proper procedure during some Senate meetings, submitted a letter to the University Student Court alleging that SA “misused and misinterpreted guiding rules, and thus materially caused harm to WISPIRG.”

Neibauer asserts that Rueden has treated the organization unfairly from the start, maintaining that while members of WISPIRG have been following the outlined student appeal process, Rueden has been “making up rules along the way.”

According to Neibauer, SA not only made various process violations but also several violations of viewpoint neutrality, which is summarized in the case of Southworth v. Board of Regents. The 2000 Supreme Court case outlined specific guidelines for committees that disperse segregated fee money.

“The SFC Bylaws specifically mandate an SFC appeal and the Supreme Court ruling in the Southworth case compels student governments to follow their process,” Neibauer said. “Therefore, we are required to get an SFC appeal. We filed an appeal on January 9, and it's been 60 school days since then. Where's our SFC appeal?”

Court justice resigns, halting appeal

The appeals committee was scheduled to meet on the issue at 8 a.m. on Feb. 24, but when those from SA showed up 20 minutes late, WISPIRG was told that they couldn’t convene because there were not enough members present to meet quorum and because the court’s chief justice, Stan Rubins, the SFC chair, was awaiting impeachment proceedings.

After the meeting, Rubins sent out a letter of resignation in which he referred to the SA as “an organization with the spirit of corruption.”

With Rubins gone, the court no longer had enough justices to legally function, leaving WISPIRG’s appeal up in the air.

“In my opinion, (my impeachment) was to stop WISPIRG from having an appeal,” Rubins said. “WISPIRG got screwed.”

Rubins said that although there were never any impeachment charges filed, he chose to resign because the SA was a waste of his time and students’ money.

Since Rubins’ resignation, Ben Butz has taken over as active chief justice, yet the court remains defunct.

Rueden defended the allegations, claiming that the USC does not have a role in the appeals process, other than the chief justice’s position as chair of the SFC.

“I have nothing against WISPIRG, they deserve an appeal,” he said. “My job is to defend my decision to SA.”

Rueden admits that SA was wrong in terms of the chief justice not calling a meeting within the outlined 10 days, but he blames WISPIRG members for changing their minds on three different occasions as to whom they want to hear the appeal — the chancellor or the SFC.

However, Nick Meyer, WISPIRG’s UWM campus organizer, said that their message has been clear the entire time: they want a fair appeal, and they want it to be a student process.

He said that the president is the one who has thrown out many different options, none of which were put in writing or moved on.

“First (Rueden) said that he would send our case back to the Senate, then he said it’ll go back to the chancellor, then we were told we would get a student process,” Meyer said. “The student process, which is what WISPIRG has been seeking all along, consists of a hearing before the USC, an SFC appeal and then a route for an appeal to the chancellor.”

Rueden said that process violations did occur and that since the bylaws were already broken so badly, the fairest thing was to take the issue back to the Senate. Rueden did not say what the Senate would do if the issue came back to it.

“This is yet another example of President Rueden blatantly ignoring his own bylaws, and Supreme Court case law,” Neibauer said.

Andy Richards, chair of the Allocable Fees Review Commission, has met with both SA and WISPIRG to discuss deadlines and processes. He said that UWM’s annual budget is due to the UW System on April 15, but because SA was able to commit to not changing the overall segregated fee rate charged to students next year, they were able to set this issue aside from the annual budget deadline, leaving more time to sort out the appeals dilemma.

“Hopefully (SA’s) process will bring closure to WISPIRG’s concerns,” he said. “If not, (WISPIRG) would have the option to appeal SA’s decision to the chancellor, and I would become involved at that point,” he said.

On March 28, the two organizations met again with Richards and again failed to determine an appeal date.

“At this point, the process is so far off track there is only one acceptable resolution: that is to go back to the point in time that the SA had handled WISPIRG’s budget correctly, when the SFC and the SA passed our full budget of $1.40 per student,” Neibauer said. “This is the only acceptable outcome because everything that has happened following that time has been outside of the prescribed process.”

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