After passing over Garry Kasparov last semester, Student Union Treasury reconsidered and voted to allocate $49,800 to bring the chess grandmaster to campus at its weekly meeting on Tuesday.

Pending final contracts being signed, Kasparov will be coming to campus April 5.

Treasury debated whether it was apt to spend almost $50,000—about 80 percent of the group’s remaining budget for the year—to bring the chess grandmaster, political activist and writer to campus a day before John Legend and two days before Gym Class Heroes.

The group originally chose not to fund Kasparov in September, voting instead to fund speakers including John Legend and Amy Chua.

But with cancellations of Al Gore and Sofia Vergara earlier this year, Treasury decided last month to allow groups to re-appeal for speakers.

The vote in favor of funding Kasparov was 15-1-1.

Junior Neel Desai, who co-presented the appeal on behalf of the Washington University Political Review (WUPR), said Kasparov’s lecture will be an exciting way to bring together a diverse sect of the University community.

“It should be exciting; it’s not just going to be a speech, he’ll engage with everyone in a different way,” he said. “We’re very fortunate as a student body to hear from a guy like this.”

Desai added that while contracts have not been finalized, the agent has expressed Kasparov’s high interest in coming to the University.

WUPR, the Gephardt Institute for Public Service and the Olin Business School will be working with the Washington University Chess Club to put on the event.

In addition, Delta Sigma Pi business fraternity pledged $1,000 to help promote the event and ensure that Graham Chapel is filled to capacity.

Opinions surrounding the appeal voiced at the treasury meeting ranged from enthusiastically in favor of, to hesitant or undecided.

“This is the kind of event that literally every single person at Wash. U. could go to, because it has that many different aspects involved,” said treasury representative Ammar Karimjee, a junior.

Treasury representatives against funding the event expressed concern about proximity to appearances of other big speakers.

“We talk about over-programming every week, I’m not sure we want to put our biggest two events back to back, Thursday and Friday; to me that doesn’t make sense,” sophomore Sean Janda said. “I think it might be money much better spent on other things.”

“We as a group, for whatever reason, selected not to bring the speaker to opt with other speakers that weren’t fully committed to coming.” senior Daniel Bernard said. “At this point, beggars can’t be choosers.”

The vote to fund Kasparov, after the decision to transfer all the remaining money in the individual appeals account to the main appeals account, leaves treasury about $13,300 to fund appeals for the remainder of the year.

Chimes Junior Honorary, which had been planning to re-appeal for Patch Adams to come and speak, chose to drop its $22,000 appeal after treasury’s account dropped below the amount it needed for Adams’ honorarium.

“Garry Kasparov will be a great speaker; that being said, we were disappointed we didn’t get to present,” Chimes President and junior Luke Schiel said. “I think treasury members were making judgments based on fall presentations.”

He said that while he respected treasury’s decision to fund Kasparov instead of Adams, he said Chimes would have appreciated Tuesday’s process being treated as an exception to the normal rule of group appeals.

“I think if one group is appealing and they will drain more of the budget than the next group has, that both groups [should] be able to present. Because implicitly, treasury members are going to make a comparison no matter what,” Schiel said.

Junior Julian Nicks, speaker of the treasury, said he will continue to receive appeals for less than the amount remaining in the account until it is depleted.

“I think Treasury made a tough decision but they also made a good one,” he said. “It’s sad; they’re both great speakers…[but] we have really great speakers this year. I don’t think we have any regrets.”