Students from JUSTICE, Amnesty International, College Democrats of Marquette and Teachers for Social Justice will join groups from across the nation from Nov.,”

More than 25 students who will travel to the Ignatian Teach-In and School of the Americas Vigil in Columbus, Ga., attended Thursday's Marquette Student Government Senate meeting to protest MUSG's decision to not allocate funds for the trip.

Students from JUSTICE, Amnesty International, College Democrats of Marquette and Teachers for Social Justice will join groups from across the nation from Nov. 17 through Nov. 19 to protest the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, formerly called the School of Americas.

WHINSEC, located in Ft. Benning, Ga., is a combat school run by the United States government that was founded to teach counterinsurgency techniques. Many people, though, believe it has undermined American values by training noted assassins and terrorists responsible for the deaths of numerous innocent individuals in Latin America.

School of the Americas-trained soldiers killed six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter in El Salvador in 1989.

"We protest the facility because the training results in violence, use of torture and other inhumane practices and we don't believe that a facility that teaches techniques in fear and violence should be allowed to exist," said Patrick Kennelly, the Head of Ignatian Teach-In and School of Americas Vigil planning committee and senior in the School of Education.

MUSG has funded the trip to Columbus the past four years in a row, including allocating $1,400 last year and more than $2,000 the two years before that.

MUSG refused any allocation of resources to the vigil this year because of improperly filled out paperwork that requested $4,300 from the MUSG Student Organization Allocation fund. The paperwork did not provide a detailed budget of the event.

According to a MUSG press release, MUSG is firmly standing behind the decision of the Student Organizations Allocation Committee not to provide funding to the event this year, despite an appeal by the trip's planning committee.

Appeals are made before the MUSG Budget Committee, which includes the financial vice president, two senators, the president, the program vice president and assistant dean of student development.

The MUSG appeals process is a rarely used venue – used three times total in the last three years, according to MUSG President Dan Calandriello, a College of Business Administration senior. The process is to review applications as they were originally submitted to the Student Organization Allocation fund – not to give organizations a second chance to fix problems with their application.

"In order to maintain a fair and consistent process only the submitted application materials are considered by the committee, so application forms must be complete and accurate to be considered for funding," a MUSG press release said. "Application forms specifically state that incomplete applications cannot be considered."

However, some students attending the vigil, such as Kennelly, believe funding should be allocated on the basis of the merit of the event and not paperwork.

"There is no doubt that the forms were filled out incorrectly, but there is also no doubt that we asked MUSG officials if the application was all right and was told it was fine," Kennelly said. "MUSG serves as stewards of student money and as applications should be considered on merit and not rejected due to paperwork."

Both Calandriello and MUSG Executive Vice President Kristen Kamm, a College of Arts & Sciences senior, expressed their personal views in support of the vigil.

"I have voted in favor of supporting funding the vigil every time it has been brought up in Senate," Calandriello said. "Kristen (Kamm) and I support any events for students that follow Jesuit ideals."

Nonetheless, MUSG has a designated process for allocating money to student organizations, which is spelled out in MUSG's Financial Policies.

According to the MUSG press release to "sway away from established procedures for any one student organization, no matter how worthy the event, would compromise the integrity and fairness of the funding allocation process."

In the most recent funding period for MUSG's Student Organization Allocation 33 different organizations requested $55,136.55 for funding of various events, but there were only enough resources to distribute $18,479 among 20 different organizations.

Kennelly said MUSG not funding the event will "not prevent the trip from taking place."

After making their presentation to MUSG Thursday night the students attending the vigil concluded their time at the Alumni Memorial Union by praying for help finding additional funding and a safe trip.

Since then, Diane Henke, as well as the Jesuit Community at Marquette, have offered monetary donations for the event. MUSG senator for O'Donnell Hall Billy Doerrer has offered to sponsor a fundraiser for the trip as well. The students attending the vigil are leaving Nov. 16.

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