A house neglected

Throughout this year a task force, led by former IU Student Association Director of Women’s Affairs Lindsay Kerrigan, reviewed the effectiveness of the Rape Crisis Fund – a voluntary fee assessed on students when registering. The task force has now announced its decision: Middle Way House, a Bloomington nonprofit organization helping the victims of rape and domestic violence (among other services), will lose a significant amount of income formally associated with the fund. \nWhile 100 percent of the Rape Crisis Fund previously benefited Middle Way, that number will now be 25 percent. The remaining money will stay with the Office of Women’s Affairs. \nThe funds do come from IU students and therefore IU has the right to allocate them in the manner that it deems best. The money will still benefit its intended cause – rape prevention, awareness and crisis support – except that 75 percent of it will be managed by the IU Office of Women’s Affairs. \nIt seemed noble at first that a task force was looking to truly help the fund. However, the decision of the task force has led to a significant loss for Middle Way House. \nWhile Middle Way House invariably has sources of funding other than the $3 students may or may not give when registering, the sudden and substantial loss of the majority of the Rape Crisis funding will send ripples though the organization. It may have been better for the task force to gradually cut the amount of money being given to Middle Way House, rather than cut them off without warning. We sympathize with Middle Way House in this instance, and hope the actions taken by the task force will not diminish the quality of the necessary services provided by the organization. \nHowever, we will stop short of fully criticizing the decision. In preparing for the review of this fund, the IUSA held open forums to discuss how to proceed with its review. One of the members of the editorial board attended such a forum and found the dialogue productive. After this meeting, we commended IUSA in an editorial for its decision to review and improve the Rape Crisis Fund. We also requested that the student government abide with the decision of the task force. \nUnfortunately, the decision has put us in a quandary. How can we praise the decision while fully remaining sympathetic to Middle Way’s situation? In short, we cannot. While we recognize the hard work and outstanding efforts of the task force and IUSA, we cannot help but question the process by which the decision was made. We understood that staff from Middle Way House as well as multiple student groups would be represented on the task force. It appears this was not the case, or at least not what we expected. \nTherefore, we respect the decision of the task force, although we question whether the process was as inclusive as it could have been. Above all, however, we lend our full support to Middle Way House: Keep up the good work, in whatever way possible.