After initially deciding to require a student group to pay a cancellation fee when it could not afford to hold a planned event due to the high cost of security, the UCLA Events Office and the Center for Student Programming have rescinded their decision.
L.O.G.I.C. club president, Arthur Lechtholz-Zey, met with CSP and the Events Office, and the university agreed the club would not be charged for canceling the event, though the university did not disclose what changed its mind.
The club also discussed with the administration the policy for clubs being charged for additional security, Lechtholz-Zey said.
Kenneth Heller, associate director of students at the Center for Student Programming, said the university is currently in the process of developing a policy that will clearly articulate when clubs will be charged for security, and the university will now bear the costs of security caused by the controversy of the event.
L.O.G.I.C., which stands for Liberty, Objectivity, Greed, Individualism and Capitalism, planned to hold an immigration debate on campus in February but canceled the event due to a lack of funding to pay for the extra security, which would have included 16 university police officers and additional Contemporary Services Corporation officers.
The club was also asked to pay for cancellation fees, though the amount was never established.
The debate would have featured both advocates and opponents of immigration, including Carl Braun, executive director of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps of California, Lechtholz-Zey said.
The Minuteman Corps opposes illegal immigration. The group has caused controversy by regulating along the U.S.-Mexico border.
L.O.G.I.C. was notified a few days before the planned event that it would have to pay for more security than originally agreed upon after the university discovered that other student organizations, including the Students for a Democratic Society, were planning to protest the appearance of the Minutemen.
Past actions from Students for a Democratic Society members at other campuses, including members forcing a Minuteman speaker off a stage at Columbia University, caused UCLA to mandate more security, said Heller.
“The (club) even said that the debate would be highly controversial. … It was not a matter of preventing free speech. It was about the safety of the students,” Heller said about the risks accompanying the debate.
The club did not want to pay for extra security however, because the security was not for the club’s event but for demonstrations put on by other student organizations, Lechtholz-Zey said.
The extra security would have cost the club up to $15,000, and Lechtholz-Zey said the club was pressured into canceling the event because of the security risks the event posed.
L.O.G.I.C. has rescheduled the debate with the same speakers for May, and Lechtholz-Zey estimates the club will pay $400 for security.
Lechtholz-Zey also notified FIRE, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, about the extra fees and asked the nonprofit organization to aid the club in convincing the university not to charge them the cancellation fees.
Tara Sweeney, a FIRE senior program officer corresponded with Interim Chancellor Norman Abrams and asked the university to create a policy that would eliminate any confusion in the future.
“It is a common misconception among administrations that clubs should pay for security for controversial events, but that is incorrect,” Sweeney said. “Safety is a valid concern, but the safety of the student body is the responsibility of the university, not the responsibility of one student group.”