Last week, many cultural centers on campus made a joint request to make changes to the Student Services Fees process.

After looking into some of the claims made by some of the cultural centers, I believe the blame is being misplaced and that claims about their funding being unfairly cut are embellished.

Many cultural centers — including La Raza and the Disabled Student Cultural Center — actually received increased funding during this student services fees cycle.

I find it unreasonable to believe that the Students Services Fees Committee — which is actually student-run — is showing any bias in their allocation process.

As for the request for more transparency in the allocation process, all SSFC deliberation sessions are open to groups who are being deliberated upon, written justification is given for every deduction taken from student group requests and all documents included in the deliberation process are available to the public. This level of transparency, both in the deliberation process and the final recommendations, should be applauded rather than criticized.

Finally, creating a separate committee just for cultural centers would add even more tension, cause less transparency and increase the level of unneeded bureaucracy to an already time-demanding, process-regulated and difficult process.

While I will never claim that the process is perfect, I would implore petitioning groups to recognize the irrationality of their requests.

Ethan Brownell

University student