December 7, 1982 — The faculty yesterday handed supporters of the Women's Center a defeat by rejecting, 59-44, an amendment designed to dilute an Undergraduate Life Committee resolution concerning the proper status of centers.
But the faculty tabled the actual resolution, which calls for all participating members to have "fair and reasonable access to the Center's financial and other resources," until the next monthly faculty meeting Jan. 3.
Supporters of the amendment argued that the faculty should call only for "fairness" in the process of determining the allocation of resources and not in the final allocation itself.
A requirement for fairness in outcome, they said, would weaken the center's role as advocates and allow the administration to interfere unduly with the centers' autonomy.
The ULC resolution is based on a report issued by the committee last May and revised several weeks ago.
The cause
The report followed in the wake of a Women's Center decision last spring to reject a proposal from Princeton Pro-Life to create an anti-abortion task force.
Pro-Life members said such a group was needed to balance the pro-choice task force at the center, but the Women's Center countered that efforts to limit abortion are contrary to the center's espoused goal of promoting women's rights.
While the Women's Center has been the focus of recent debate, the ULC resolution would also apply to the Third World Center and the International Center.
Critics of the proposed amendment to the resolution argued yesterday that centers should not be allowed systematically to deny resources to students with dissenting views regardless of the fairness of the decision-making process.
"Any definition of fair procedure involves some sense of fair outcome. It just does," Provost Rudenstine said. "It's not enough to be able to compete if some students are constantly shut off."
Fine line
"Debate also centers around the ULC's distinction in its May 6 paper between voluntary associations that the committee said can espouse a single partisan position and University facilities such as the Women's Center that receive University funds and thus should not adopt a particular political viewpoint.
Politics professor Sheldon Wolin, a key critic of this distinction, argued that the centers were founded to promote legal rights of women and minorities and thus the pursuit of those rights should not be dismissed for being partisan.
Janet Martin, professor of classics, also criticized the resolution's requirement that the center directors, under the dean of student affairs, be responsible for maintaining "the right tone of openness and free inquiry" at the centers.
The faculty tabled a discussion of a second amendment to the resolution and of the resolution itself.
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