More: Keeping Tabs on Student Government

We recently blogged about student blogger Joseph Schuster and his resolve to hold student government accountable by bringing some light to the rather opaque subject.

After a brief spell of blogging for the Marquette Tribune, Schuster is back at his old blog, The MUSG Disconnect.

Why? Because the Tribune refused to publish (on his Tribune blog, not in the paper) a piece saying that Marquette University Student Government is “unnecessary.” That the student body would be better off without it.

What heresy!

A Tribune editor called this “not constructive” and spiked it.

Just what did Schuster say that was so bad? Here are the first few paragraphs.

As I was walking through campus today, I had a most horrible thought, what would Marquette University be like without MUSG?

As I looked around with this thought in my mind, the entire campus began to crumble before me. I saw buildings, never getting built. Sports teams never reaching the levels they are at. Academics not being what they are, and there just are not as many students as we have today.

Actually, it would be the exact same place that it is today. The administration and staff at Marquette take care of everything. MUSG just takes up space and resources. This year, MUSG’s revenue, according to their budget was $447,700. The majority of this money was raised through the student activity fee. Now how much of that $447,700goes back to the students through the student organization allocations? Only $128,500.

Now just think, if we didn’t have MUSG taking their cut of that $447,700 and doing whatever it is that they do (we are still trying very hard to figure that out), then students could put all that money, specifically where they want it. According to the budget $3,000 gets spend on MUSG advertising. I guess they have to convince people to join them.

Schuster also revealed some interesting data about how MUSG allocates its funds.

As most probably know, MUSG (mis)allocates the student activity fee among student organizations. Recently 2 of the organizations that received a fairly generous portion of the activity fee demonstrated against the Marquette ROTC, because apparently, soldiers are being trained for the “unjust war in Iraq.”

The two student groups that were supporters of this event (through encouraging members to attend) were the Muslim Student Association and the group known as J.U.S.T.I.C.E. (An acronym meaning liberal student organization). Information about the specific s of the demonstration can be found on the Marquette Warrior Blog.

But the reason that I feel a need to mention this protest on a blog devoted to MUSG is because in period 2, MUSG gave JUSTICE, $3,084.00, see MUSG’s SOA allocations here the exact amount that they requested. Now just to let you know how hard it is to get the exact amount that you request from MUSG, in the last period, only 17.6% of events received the funding level which they requested. So either the JUSTICE application was quite good, or MUSG has a special heart for the leftist organization.

It’s the latter, obviously. J.U.S.T.I.C.E. is a leftist student organization that represents, with unerring fidelity, the political agenda of the University Ministry.

And MUSG is pretty much under the thumb of bureaucrats in the Office of Student Development. Since the University Ministry and OSD think the same way and work hand-in-hand on projects of leftist indoctrination, it’s not surprising that MUSG funds the organization generously.

Look for more from Schuster.