SU Treasury approves funding for Legend, Vergara and Chua

| Student Life Editors

Courtesy of MCT Campus

John Legend

Student Union Treasury voted to allocate $105,569 to bring John Legend, Sofia Vergara and Amy Chua, a professor at Yale Law School and author of “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother”, to campus in a meeting flooded by about 100 students Tuesday night.

The Association of Black Students appealed to bring Legend, the Association of Latin American Students appealed for Vargara and Lunar New Year Festival appealed for Chua.

Appeals for Sanjay Gupta, Garry Kasparov, Ashley Judd, Djimon Hounsou, Chris Gardner, Patch Adams and Bill McKibben were not funded.

Treasury representatives deliberated until close to 3 a.m. and members of the different groups waited until then for the final decisions. Emotions ran high as student groups stayed to voice support for their own appeals and other speakers they also hoped to see funded.

Treasury’s initial strategy to choose speakers was to divide the speakers into packages. Treasury members nominated over 30 packages consisting of different combinations of speakers.

Several rounds of voting were conducted to shorten the list, but Treasury members still struggled to reach a consensus even after narrowing the docket to two packages.

Attempts were made very late in the process to add new speakers to existing packages or to add entirely new packages. Ultimately, Treasury decided to vote separately on Legend and Kasparov, both speakers with price tags of over $50,000.

Treasury voted unanimously to fund the Association of Black Students’ appeal for Legend. The Washington University Chess Club’s appeal to bring Kasparov was rejected by a vote of 8 in favor, 9 against.

“I think chess still carries a stigma even at the university level,” junior Jacob Zax, president of the University’s Chess Club, said. “I think it would’ve been good for Student Union to have a speaker like this…and it’s too bad it didn’t happen.”

Ashoka’s request for $50,000 to bring Gupta to campus was rejected in the first round of voting. Members of the student group felt that Gupta’s similarity to Dr. Joia Mukherjee—who was funded last week—hurt their cause.

“It’s almost a pick of the draw whether the small speakers go first or the big speakers go first; we just never got a say. We think Sanjay Gupta would have brought something different to the table and have a lot more name recognition,” Ajay Kanakamedala, Ashoka’s treasurer, said.

The appeals for Vergara and Chua both made it through on individual votes. LNYF’s appeal for Chua had been eliminated earlier in the package system but found new life when considered separately.

“I think the whole system with packaging made things really complicated. I almost left because I thought she was out,” Rina Matsumoto, co-executive director of LNYF, said. “Amy Chua addresses a lot of issues not covered by the other speakers. She is a superstar because of her issues, not because of her name.”

Beyond the few procedural complaints, some students said they appreciated the support they received from students outside their organizations.

“The solidarity of other groups who maybe didn’t receive what they wanted—and being mature and standing up for others who they believed deserved the chance—was impressive,” Zachary Romo, outreach chair for ALAS, said.

Dates for most of the speakers have yet to be set.

SU Treasury allocated funding for Al Gore, Daphne Kwok, Mukherjee, Deanne Bell and Jess Weiner last week.

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