On Nov. 10, Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) and the Graduate Students’ Association (GSA) filed a court application to force Carleton University to fulfill its legal obligation to remit fees that it holds in trust on behalf of student associations. This is unprecedented.
As an article in this week’s Charlatan alludes to, the recent negotiations at Carleton over access to the audited statements of CUSA and the GSA are about much more than transparency. In fact, access to the audited statements of each student organization makes up only one small part of negotiations that have been taking place between Carleton’s senior administration and its student associations for over a year.
Behind this process lies an effort by Carleton’s senior administration to put student organizations on a shorter leash, making it less desirable for students to speak out in ways that could potentially cause embarrassment to the university.
It’s the job of CUSA and the GSA to advocate for students. Sometimes this includes being openly critical of Carleton’s senior administration when such criticism serves the interests of their members. For example, each student association has disagreed publicly—and loudly—with the university on matters such as its refusal to support a sexual assault centre, its attempt to take the administration of Frosh Week away from students and annual increases in Carleton’s tuition fees.
Such vocal, public opposition can be embarrassing for Carleton’s senior administration, and this brings us to the recent conflict over the release of each respective student organization’s membership fees.
Last year, Carleton’s auditor advised the university that it should seek additional assurance that fees collected on behalf of the student associations are indeed being passed on to the groups they are intended for (e.g. CKCU radio station, Foot Patrol, Ontario Public Interest Research Group, etc.).
Since that time, Carleton has (understandably) asked each student organization for more financial information, but with one enormous catch: rather than simply ask for more information on how specific fees are transferred or expensed (as requested by their auditor), it has used this request by the auditor as an excuse to propose brand new agreements governing the relationship between the university and student associations. It has threatened to stop dispensing membership fees to student associations altogether unless these new agreements are signed.
Carleton’s auditor asked for something small, namely a bit more financial transparency. Carleton’s senior administration, in turn, has used this request as an excuse to ask for something much greater, namely the power to take over each student organization at will—something that was never requested by their auditor.
Measures proposed by the university in the new proposals would, at least indirectly, make it so that any student organization that helps organize a boisterous rally against tuition fee increases would face the veiled—or not so veiled—threat of takeover by Carleton’s senior administration. The same would hold for any future rally supporting a sexual assault centre or the next protest over Frosh Week.
To be sure, greater financial transparency is merely a pretext being used to justify powers that, if granted, could silence student dissent. And that makes this song and dance over audited statements as phony as a $3 bill.
Carleton is holding student membership fees in trust. The fees are intended for the student organizations, whose members paid them on the understanding that CUSA and the GSA would receive them.
The time has now come for President Roseann Runte to personally intervene in negotiations. If she does, she could ensure that the professional advice of Carleton’s auditors is honoured, not exploited.