Word: opt
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Court ruled the campaign finance limits were constitutionally suspect because donations are a form of speech that under the First Amendment cannot be abridged. If the Court applies the same money-equals-speech logic to the Southworth case, the dissenters will probably win their grievance and be allowed to opt out of supporting particular student groups. They will view their win as not merely a victory for free speech, but also for market forces...
While Harvard's activities fee is currently assessed on an all-or-nothing basis, the Wisconsin students seek the opportunity to opt out of subsidizing only particular groups. Loyal readers of this page will recognize the quandary this poses as being similar to the debate launched by Daniel Choi'94 last fall over Harvard's policy of refunding the portion of student health fees that funds UHS-performed abortions...
...difficult to imagine the chaos if students were allowed an endless array of such opt-out privileges. Culturally offended by Chinese language instruction? Philosophically opposed to scientific research on animals? Concerned about Harvard's financial investments in oil companies? Demand a refund of whatever insignificant portion of your fees support these endeavors! At modern universities like Harvard with their hands in every educational pot--what former U.C. Berkeley Chancellor Clark Kerr referred to as the "multiversity"--opt-out schemes become terribly infeasible...
...Wisconsin dissidents, for example, want to opt out only of supporting particular "political" student groups. But this becomes difficult when the old lines have become increasing blurred however; last school year, for example, Ballet Folklorico de Aztlan, a dance group here at Harvard, joined the very-much-political anti-grape campaign. If the Court rules in their favor, the students at Wisconsin and elsewhere may soon be faced with a checklist student groups seeking support on their termbills. Is that what conservatives really want...
...distributed fairly and without regard to the supposed ideological propriety of projects, it is clear that these fees add to the dynamism of campus life. It is uncertain whether the council's proposed fee increase would really be advantageous, but what is certain is that the sort of opt-out schemes that may result from the Supreme Court's upcoming ruling would bring chaos to termbills, all in the name of suspicious free-speech claims. I share the Wisconsin students' aversion to thought control, but the special character of university student life may demand a more sophisticated response than checkoff...