UCourt holds hearing for Catalyst

By Abigail Panitz     4/20/16 5:14pm

The Rice University Court held a public hearing Sunday afternoon to deliberate on the revocation of Rice Catalyst’s blanket tax status. The hearing follows a complaint filed by Student Association president Griffin Thomas as a student on the Blanket Tax Committee. UCourt will release its decision on Catalyst’s blanket tax status Wednesday. 

Earlier in the spring, the BTC recommended to the SA that Catalyst receive blanket tax funding, and it was then granted blanket tax status by a majority student vote in the spring general election. 

Thomas, a Lovett College junior and acting-chair of the BTC at the time of the Catalyst funding decision, said in his complaint that Catalyst had not disclosed an annual source of funding from the Center for Civic Leadership to the BTC during its deliberations. He said Catalyst’s failure to disclose this source of funding, whether knowingly or unknowingly, stands in violation of several sections of the SA constitution, invalidating the BTC’s decision and by extension, Catalyst’s blanket tax status. 

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During the hearing, UCourt presented evidence of primarily email correspondences, followed by witness statements from Thomas, SA parliamentarian Annabelle McIntire-Gavlick and Catalyst treasurer Sai Chilakapati. If the funding from the CCL is annual and permanent, UCourt said, Catalyst fails to meet the requirement for blanket tax funding that “all other reasonable means of acquiring funding” be exhausted.

A piece of evidence in the case was an email correspondence between former co-editor in chief of the Catalyst Vijay Venkatesan (Baker ’15), adviser of the Catalyst Daniel Wagner and Executive Director of the CCL Caroline Quenemoen, describing the CCL’s history of funding Catalyst. Emails showed that CCL had begun funding Catalyst for the 2014 publication year, giving them $2,100. For the 2015 year, Quenemoen offered $2,500, which Catalyst accepted. In 2016, the Catalyst student leaders requested $3,000 which was met by the CCL.

In response to an inquiry Acting Vice-Chair Bailey Tulloch sent in advance of the hearing, Quenemoen described the email as offering funding annually to Catalyst.

Sai Chilakapati, who served as SA treasurer but recused himself from BTC deliberations on Catalyst, said he had not seen this email.

Chilakapati said the BTC’s only inquiry during deliberations on the nature of Catalyst’s funding was whether the CCL’s funding was annual, without following up or clarifying the definition of the term. 

“I took [the term ‘annual’] to the nature of the very legal definition [which to me] was ‘contractual’ and I know for a fact that the CCL funding was not contractual,” Chilakapati, a Hanszen College junior, said. 

Chilakapati said funding from the CCL could change with leadership in the CCL or with a decrease in funding available.

Chilakapati said he had followed up with the BTC regarding its questions on Catalyst’s budget and met Thomas privately to discuss his concerns.

When questioning McIntire-Gavlick, a Lovett junior, Tulloch asked her how the BTC would define annual funding. Tulloch continued the questioning by asking if McIntire-Gavlick defines annual funding as funding that would reach into the extended future.

“I think we can pick apart the semantics of the word ‘annual’ but to a certain extent [it comes down to whether] this funding [is] consistent and will be given every year,” McIntire-Gavlick said.

When questioned, Thomas brought up Chilakapati’s role in the BTC review meeting of the Catalyst. Chilakapati said he answered questions directly as well as conversationally, and contacted other Catalyst members when he was asked questions to which he did not know the answer. He said he was open about the Catalyst’s relationship with the CCL.

“I did say [in the BTC meeting] I was looking forward to working with [the CCL],” Chilakapati  said.

Thomas said the misunderstanding was a result of lack of communication about the budget within the Catalyst members.

“In conversations with [Chilakapati] and [Subramanian] they honestly didn’t know funding is available, so I’m not accusing them of malice,” he said. “[The information] was just not passed down and so they responded incorrectly.”

Thomas said he saw this as a dangerous precedent.

“Next year when we [evaluate proposals] an organization could turn a blind eye to past budgeting practices and unknowingly give us false information and just continue on as a Blanket Tax organization,” he said.

Ajay Subramanian, co-editor in chief of the Catalyst, was also present at the hearing and he asked to speak once all witnesses had come up.

Subramanian said he questioned the decision of the UCourt to call forward only a few witnesses. 

“I find it hard to believe that [this] is due diligence,” he said. “You’re getting two very polarized opinions, whereas the decision made by the [BTC] to recommend Catalyst was by more than two people; in fact the voting was done by neither of the two people you’ve been talking to. I find it incredibly hard to believe that [Thomas] can speak for all of those people.”

Thomas responded to this concern.

“I don’t necessarily disagree but I would say that I was acting-chair for this case so I do have the authority to speak on behalf of the committee for this decision,” he said.

After the hearing, Chilakapati said he found the UCourt hearing to be very confusing, although he said this is the first UCourt process he has experienced.

“To my understanding, this process seemed very much different from the process highlighted on the UCourt [website],” Chilakapati said. “In terms of the hearing, I thought it was very uneducated for them to not call on our organization’s EIC to speak on behalf of Catalyst.”

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