Some students gasped and others giggled when Lisa Opdycke, ’11, president of Sexual Awareness for Everyone dramatically plopped down a large, 26-page-long petition of names and signatures from students who support the group’s request for funding from the Student Assembly Finance Committee for condoms, dental dams and lube. Opdycke presented the impressive list at last Thursday’s S.A. meeting as a symbol of campus-wide support when SAFE appealed the outcome of the SAFC’s funding decision to the Student Assembly.

Long list of supporters: Lisa Opdycke ‘11 debates the budget cuts directed at SAFE, a group that offers free sexual health supplies to students.SAFE, a student organization dedicated to promoting safe sex practices and sexual health awareness on campus and in the Cornell community, originally requested funding to purchase the above items in order to distribute them to students in the Cornell community.

In the final step of the appeals process, the S.A. upheld the SAFC’s decision by a vote of 6-14-0. Thursday’s appeal to the S.A., however, was just the group’s most recent step in what has been a lengthy funding request process. Opdycke outlined the steps the group has taken thus far, “We submitted our budget on time and then we got the decision back from the SAFC … then we appealed their decision and the SAFC the SAFC gave us back nothing. Then on Monday of last week we appealed to the S.A. Appropriations Committee and once they said, ‘no [we] wouldn’t fund these items,’ we decided to appeal again and that’s what led to us being at Thursday’s meeting.”

In past years, the group has received donations from a variety of non-Cornell affiliated organizations, including a large supply of a few thousand condoms which the group received a few years ago. SAFE’s supply, however, finally dwindled to less than 500 condoms last spring. Due to a change in SAFC funding guidelines, SAFE anticipated that this year the funds to restock their supply would come from the SAFC.

“Originally when we put in our budget we asked for an allocation of [money for] condoms and we thought we wouldn’t have a problem,” Opdycke explained, “because [the SAFC] added a clause under the durable goods category that said that if items were necessary for a group’s purpose [the SAFC] would fund them.”

In spite of changes to their rules, the SAFC still declined SAFE’s funding request.

“The SAFC said that these items weren’t necessary for the group’s survival,” Opdycke said.

“Our new clause for this semester is that we allow groups to apply for goods that are necessary for their purpose ... but we do not fund items for personal use or for free giveaways,” SAFC co-chair Yuliya Neverova ’10 explained.

While the SAFC did see the necessity of providing SAFE with condoms for educational purposes — and agreed to fund 30 condoms for SAFE to use in educational demonstrations, the committee did not feel that free sexual health supplies for the Cornell community were similarly necessary to the group’s purpose.

“You say that these items are essential to the club but a lot of items could be considered essential to a lot of clubs,” Neverova explained. “We’re not saying that the club doesn’t deserve these. We’re saying that we don’t fund them and we don’t want to open a Pandora’s box of problems and have people asking about funding personal items and giveaways.”

Furthermore, Neverova stressed the decision to deny SAFE’s funding request was not in any way influenced by the group’s purpose at Thursday’s meeting when she stated, “It is not the role of SAFC to fund these kinds of items … We have no personal issues with this club but we’re a subsidiary organization and we fund by objective guidelines.”

Nonetheless, not every S.A. member agreed with the SAFC decision. Expressing his support for SAFE, LGBTQ Rep. Danzer, who voted to overturn the SAFC’s decision, said, “I know many, many people in my own constituency — and in general — are not willing to walk into Gannett and get these goods, especially with the swine flu [because] going into Gannett might actually endanger your health.”

Although she backed the SAFC’s decision, Neverova felt that the responsibility for funding SAFE should come under S.A. jurisdiction, explaining at Thursdy’s meeting that “I think this is an ongoing issue that is a problem for [SAFE], and now knowing what a big issue this is on campus, I think the S.A. make a separate fund for sexual health goods.”

Arts and Sciences Rep. Natalie Raps ’12 concurred, “This is an issue that affects all students and it’s our job as the S.A. to protect [students’ sexual health].” She continued, “We’re going to try to work together to get funding as quickly as possible because obviously the semester’s half over and we want [SAFE] to be able to do what they’re set up to do as quickly as possible.”

Among her closing comments to the S.A., Opdycke expressed SAFE’s openness to any possible funding sources, reiterating the group’s fundamental need for some source of University funding.

“Maybe the SAFC isn’t the right place to get funding for these items, but my concern is just getting some place in the University to fund us.”