The student government at the University of California, Berkeley will vote Thursday on whether or not it should strip its College Republican club of funds and give them to the black student union.
Associated Students of the University of California senator Rizza Estacio proposed the motion, asserting the Berkeley College Republicans violated school policy when hosting campus events, reported The College Fix.
“Some of what this organization has done has broken regulations that we uphold to every registered student organization,” Estacio said to The Daily Californian. “I want to make it clear that if you break these rules, you are no longer eligible for our funding.”
Estacio did not elaborate on exactly what policies the College Republican group had violated and The Daily Caller News Foundation reached out to the student government to inquire but received no comment in time for press.
The Berkeley College Republicans bashed the proposal as “based on a complete falsehood” and “poorly researched and unscrupulous.” The group also insisted it took no part in “the planning and organization of Free Speech Week,” a September event hosted by conservative commentator Milo Yiannopoulos at the school.
“Defunding the Berkeley College Republicans because their expression offended others on campus would certainly violate the First Amendment,” free speech nonprofit Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) spokesman Ari Cohn told The College Fix. “As an agent of the university to which administrators have delegated the responsibility of distributing the mandatory fees that the university collects, [the Associated Students group] is bound by the First Amendment in its performance of this role the same as the university itself would be.”
Berkeley spokesman Dan Mogulof insists student unions are “separate legal entities” from University of California schools. He said that, according to UC Berkeley, the College Republican group was “in good standing.”
At least two other Associated Students members expressed concern with Estacio’s proposal. The group’s housing commission member Matthew Lewis expressed uncertainty concerning the legality of the motion and Associated Students President Zaynab AbdulQadir-Morris said “zeroing out BCR is a lawsuit.”
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