The Student Bar Association passed a resolution urging officials to allocate additional funding to law student organizations at an ad hoc meeting Wednesday.
Senators originally convened the Wednesday meeting to continue debating a resolution from last week asking GW Law officials for stipends for the SBA president and executive vice president. But after several senators expressed opposition to the stipend resolution considering law student organization are already facing decreased budgets, senators moved to introduce and pass a resolution requesting officials set aside an increased amount for the SBA Fund, which will be distributed between law student organizations and the SBA’s executive budget at the next body meeting.
Senators first debated the Stipend Resolution at the last body meeting where they chose to table further discussion to avoid prolonging the almost three-hour-long meeting. Senators last week said they felt uncomfortable paying SBA members amid University-wide budget cuts which led to decreased law student organization funding last year and did not want to support legislation that did not specify where funds for a stipend would come from or how much money would constitute a reasonable amount.
SBA Sen. Lauren Bernard at Wednesday’s meeting said she revised the Stipend Resolution to clarify that senators did not want the potential stipend to divert funds from existing scholarships, student employment or financial assistance programs. She said she also wrote a new clause recommending the stipend be equivalent to a part-time job at minimum wage, while saying the number of hours that would be compensated would be determined through “consultation” between the SBA and officials.
Despite edits to the resolution, multiple SBA senators said they did not support the legislation because none of their constituents they spoke with supported the stipend.
SBA Sen. Lili Myers said supporting the resolution would be going “against” her constituents and added if the Senate were to ask officials for any additional funding, the money should go to student organizations, who already faced decreased budgets last year. She said even though the updated resolution specified the stipend should not divert funds from law student organizations, it still asked officials to focus on the stipend, which could decrease their willingness to put funds in other “pools.”
“That’s my biggest issue,” Myers said. “I know it’s different pools, but it’s just the fact that we’re trying to up funding here where there’s really a need for funding somewhere else.”
The SBA receives a portion of its funding from the Student Government Association, which funnels a set amount of money — based on the total contributions made by law students during the current fiscal year — from the University into “graduate student umbrella organizations,” like the SBA, along with additional funds from GW Law. The stipend resolution would specifically ask officials within the University’s law school to create an additional fund for the stipend, rather than pulling from their current allocations, according to the resolution.
Before senators voted on the stipend resolution, SBA Sen. Matthew Connor then introduced the Resolution Urging the Allocation of Additional Funding for Student Organizations, which he wrote during the meeting. The resolution urges GW Law officials to increase the annual amount they give the SBA — which the Senate then distributes to law student organizations and the SBA executive budget.
Connor said it was a “weird” time to ask the University for an officer stipend and said the “only way” he could consider supporting the resolution would be if it was introduced to officials alongside a request for increased law student organization funding. He said the resolution specifically requested affinity organizations and groups that provide “essential community-building” receive additional funding because he said affinity groups have reported a decrease in outside donors due to “outside political reasons.”
Connor said he wanted the Senate to pass the resolution before the next SBA meeting, where the Senate will allocate funds to various law student organizations, because law officials have not yet confirmed the amount they will allocate to the SBA this year.
“It’s very easy to ask for money when it’s still in somebody’s hand, but after they’ve dispersed all the funds, it’s going to be very hard to try and claw back any additional funds because then they’re going to have to take it from somewhere else,” Connor said.
Senators then debated whether the two resolutions should be slated together.
Vice President Thaddaeus Canuel said slating the two resolutions would make them “tied” together, meaning the Senate could not pass one without the other.
SBA Sen. Aya Almasri, who proposed slating, said she supported the stipend resolution because paying top officers would “preserve the health” of the SBA by ensuring its top officers can represent their constituents while also having the means to take care of themselves. She said making the Senate “equipped” to serve its constituents would require introducing a stipend and asking for additional law student organization funding.
“One part of that is funding our student organizations, and the other part of that is making sure that the people who are putting in the work at the top, who are coordinating everything, who are doing the work of full-time employees, are having their basic needs met,” Almasri said.
Almasri said slating the resolutions would also allow law officials to explain the school’s financial situation and ability to fund one or both of the requests — which she said the SBA can only currently speculate on.
“I think introducing these resolutions at the same time and opening up these conversations with the school sends a message that we actually have more than one priority to fund and then we can let the school tell us what the financial situation is,” Almasri said.
Multiple senators said they did not support slating the resolutions because they did not want to group together resolutions that would not have the same level of support among constituents.
SBA Sen. Nathaniel Rutledge said slating the two resolutions would create a “poison pill bill,” using a resolution to increase student organization funding to also pass a bill he said he and his constituents did not approve of.
SBA Sen. Molly Broughton said she did not want slating the bills to send a message to officials that both resolutions were on “equal footing,” leaving officials to possibly prioritize a stipend over law student organization funding.
After over an hour of debating, motions to slate the two resolutions and pass the stipend resolution both failed. Senators only passed the second of the two resolutions, which requested officials allocate additional SBA funds for the purpose of increasing funds for law student organizations.
The Senate then passed the Tabling Accountability and Basic Liaison Expectations Act, which requires senators completing their mandatory tabling, as outlined in SBA bylaws, to submit a written report of student feedback.
Bernard, who wrote the Act, said she hoped instating a written requirement would make the Senate more informed about students’ ideas, concerns and feedback and would push senators to actively engage with their constituents. She said she wrote the bill after noticing last year that students weren’t directly sharing ideas for legislation with the SBA — something she would like to change this year.
The Senate also passed the Senate Meeting Overview and Reporting Effort Act, which requires the SBA secretary to write a “brief” and “accessible” summary of each Senate meeting along with publishing the minutes. Bernard, who wrote the Act, said she wanted this act to increase the Senate’s transparency by clearly outlining what the Senate has or has not done.
“Last Senate were incredible,” Bernard said. “They passed so much legislation and bills, and yet no one knew what they were doing.”
SBA Senators also confirmed 2L SBA Sen. Barbie Sengupta, who was absent at the body’s last meeting.
The next SBA meeting will be held Sept. 9 at 9 p.m.
