I have absolutely NO idea why the Ayn Rand Study Group got so much funding this year. If you look at the second graph again, you’ll notice that they didn’t even request any money last year, and thus didn’t get any. To jump from $0 to over $80,000 funding (which, by the way, is more than the QSCC has ever even requested) for a book club is absolutely ridiculous.

One thing I DO know is that one of the conservative groups that got a huge boost in funding this year got $100,000 dollars to get Bush on campus, because Obama came to campus to speak last year (never mind that Obama spoke here for free, as it was for voter outreach during election season).

I’m particularly interested in the Ayn Rand Study Group receiving more than $80,000. I would love to know what they spend that money on. One would think that a group dedicated to studying the works of Ayn Rand would not need a particularly large budget on which to operate. If you are trying to get more publicity for this issue, that might be something to highlight!

http://www.studentservicesfees.umn.edu//forms/FY12feesMNDaily_initial.pdf

The first link is a comparison of last year’s funding to this years of political groups, and the second is the official funding for all groups this year.

It is true that the QSCC submitted their funding request late- by 40 minutes- but completely denying funding to a group for being late, especially by only 40 minutes, is pretty much unheard of.

I’m curious — do you have any more insight, or any links, to further information about the University of Minnesota? Google got me to a couple of articles, one of which stated that the Queer Student Cultural Center submitted their application for funding for the 2010-11 academic year late, another which talked about conservative groups receiving lots more funding but didn’t address the gay group.

It would be interesting to hear more about this. Thanks for raising it!

I’m surprised that I haven’t seen more coverage of this in gay media and gay blogs. If the U of M doesn’t fix this the problem is gonna blow up big time. The QSCC isn’t the only group to get snuffed for funding, and the others are pissed as well.