Fund the RWRC

By Felicity Phelan     4/18/25 9:29pm

Editor’s Note: This is a guest opinion that has been submitted by a member of the Rice community. The views expressed in this opinion are those of the author and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of the Thresher or its editorial board. All guest opinions are fact-checked to the best of our ability and edited for clarity and conciseness by Thresher editors. 

The Student Association's plan to cut the Rice Women's Resource Center budget is wrong, and you should be mad about it.

While not approving a 100% increase of the RWRC's current budget is understandable, particularly for an administration that ran on a platform of belt tightening, cutting the organization's budget to an amount $1,000 less than the current budget, which is on schedule to be fully utilized by the end of the academic year, fails to reflect the value the RWRC provides to the Rice community and is especially chilling in an increasingly hostile state- and nationwide reproductive climate.

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It is not lost on me that this decision was handed down by a Blanket Tax Committee whose voting membership is 85.7% male and whose total membership is 81.8% male (and that's counting a female staff advisor – looking only at students, the total committee membership is 88.9% male).

Replying to the RWRC's observations that other campus organizations were granted budgets equal to or exceeding their current eligible budgets, the BTC argued that student media organizations serve "broader student populations," as if an organization specifically devoted to the service of Rice's women, approximately 50% of the student body, is not sufficiently broad in its impact. It is hard to know that something is useful if you yourself never need to use it, and I wonder how often each of the committee members have made use of the RWRC's services.

There is, of course, "the incident," which is discussed in both the RWRC's appeal and the BTC's response. During the budget review meeting, a BTC member expressed ignorance (rather flippantly, in my opinion) on the purpose of a Diva Cup and why the RWRC would supply them to students. 

When the RWRC, in their appeal, pointed to this as evidence that the BTC was perhaps not sufficiently well-informed about the RWRC's programming, the BTC responded saying it was "unkind" to expect knowledge about menstrual products as a prerequisite to budget decision-making. I disagree. In fact, I'm reminded of Texas Representative Andy Hopper's recent display of ignorance on intersexuality while attempting to legislate LGBTQ+ issues. It is not "unkind" to expect elected officials to know what they're making decisions on – or, for that matter, to expect men to have a basic understanding of menstrual products.

The BTC's refrain throughout this dispute has been that the budget must be accepted as it currently stands, or else funding for all Blanket Tax Organizations will be delayed. Holding other student organizations hostage to force students to accept legislation is not democracy, and it does not fulfill the SA's purported purpose to represent the will of the students. Students should not be guilted or fearmongered into passing a budget they object to, and if the budget process is so precarious that the budget must be accepted as first proposed without room for critique, that sounds like an SA issue, not the RWRC’s.

I am not a member of the RWRC executive team, although I encourage you to also read their response to the budget decision. What I am is a Rice student and a woman who makes frequent use of the RWRC's crucial and freely-available menstrual and sexual health supplies, and who feels proud that my university is home to a robust service and community hub. To me, and to the many students who contributed testimonies to the RWRC's budget appeal, this impact is worth $1,000 – and more.

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