[Free Beacon] The student government at Cornell University improperly donated thousands of dollars in student fees to a coalition of Black Lives Matter activists and left-leaning organizations.The Student Activities Funding Committee (SAFC), a student-led panel that allocates fees to campus groups, sent $10,000 to the Cornell Students for Black Lives fundraising initiative. The initiative, which is not a registered student organization, describes itself as a student organization "coalition." According to the funding guidelines in the student government charter, for a group to be "eligible to request funds or to spend allocated funds [it] must register with and be approved by the Campus Activities Office by when the budgets are due in each semester."
The contributions have drawn objections from other student groups. Conservative student leaders penned a letter to the editor at the Cornell Daily Sun expressing their concern that the spending violated the SAFC charter and funding guidelines.
"Nothing in SAFC's charter, bylaws or guidelines for funding authorizes the transfer of funds to non-registered groups," the letter reads. "No meeting on the record was held and no vote was recorded."
The Cornell Students for Black Lives initiative has already generated a financial windfall, raising more than $118,000 from a GoFundMe page in collaboration with the Cornell Black Alumni Association. Neither the initiative nor the alumni association returned a request for comment.