Article summary: Go to the Office of Student Life in SRB, and DEPLEDGE CalPIRG.
Toward the middle of my first year here, a friend of mine asked me to sign up for CalPIRG. “It’s $5 a quarter, and the money will go to ‘good’ causes,” he said. I wish I could say my intentions were humanitarian, but nah — I just didn’t want to say no to my friend. That’s how I got into this mess.
I’m much poorer than the average student at this university, and this year, feeling the financial pressures more than ever, I began pinching pennies. One of the things that came to mind was CalPIRG. So I went to their office in the UCen, and said I wanted to depledge. “No Problem, fill this thing out, and we’ll take your name off,” they said. I filled out the form and turned it in. Simple enough, or so I thought.
Catch: CalPIRG charged me anyway. Have you ever had this experience with your phone company — they charge you a whole bunch of extra money, hoping you won’t notice, and if you do notice and call them, they play the dumb card, apologize, and promise to take the charge off immediately? I just can’t help noticing the similarities between what CalPIRG did, and the phone company’s antics.
It’s not about the money, believe me. OK, I take that back. It IS about the money, but it was a lot more about the fact that I went in, specifically asked to be taken off the list, and they billed me anyway.
So, I continued my journey, went to the Office of Student Life, and asked to talk to the dean. She wasn’t there, so her assistant came out, and this is how the conversation went:
Her: What is the issue?
Me: CalPIRG.
Her: OK, let me guess, you asked to be taken off the list, and they billed you anyway.
Me: So, I take it I’m not the first one to come in.
Her: Oh no, they have been very negligent about this stuff.
Of course they have. It pays to be negligent in a situation like this, doesn’t it?
Next thing you know, I get an e-mail from CalPIRG, saying they’ll do everything in their power to get the charge off my BARC. Shockingly enough, this has yet to actually happen.
Can public pressure be significant in shaping public policy? Yes. No one can deny that. However, the public pressure needs to be very strong in order for it to work. Organizations like CalPIRG are far too weak to withstand any pressure from the right.
CalPIRG might make us feel that we are giving money away to a good cause, but at some point you need to wake up and look at reality. There are much better ways to waste money than giving it to ineffective organizations like CalPIRG, who talk, but can never deliver.
If you are a freshman, I assure you that at some point during your college career someone will walk up to you saying “Help us stop student fees from going up, help us make textbooks cheaper, help us make the world a better place…” Don’t buy it.
The bottom line: If you have already pledged CalPIRG, go to the Office of Student Life in SRB, and depledge; if you haven’t pledged, good for you.
CalPIRG’s True Colors: Through a Clear Lens
Please see this article for a full response to Mr. Safari’s concerns. I hope that unfortunate experience of one student will not be enough to deter anyone from losing faith in grassroots political activism and the potential voice of students.
Thank you for choosing to balance your views on this issue and search the daily nexus website for "CalPIRG" to learn more about what they actually do on campus.
Calpirg actually does stuff with the $5 like lobbying representatives and getting professors to switch to free textbooks. If you’re "much poorer than the average student", my guess is you get financial aid – which calpirg recently lobbied (successfully) to get increased by $68 billion on the federal level through the Student Aid Fiscal Responsibility Act. Stopping CalGrants from being eliminated was another one of calpirg’s victories which you probably benefit from. The $5 per quarter goes to professional staff that works to make this change happen. It’s really pathetic for you to decry this as a "waste" especially when… Read more »
Dear ArashCome by the CalPIRG office and I will gladly pay you your $15 dollars. The reason this hasn’t gotten worked out is because we are working on many different campaigns, most of which focus on making this campus and YOUR experience at this campus more enjoyable, more environmentally sound, more socially just and more inviting to all potential UCSB students. While we were being "ignorant" to your request, you must have been ignorant to our unending work over the last year in trying to protect students’ rights and financial situations by toiling over the protection of Cal Grants, by… Read more »
CAPIRG’S True Colors: Through a Clear LensPeople like yourself who have a negative attitude toward organizations like CALPIRG are the reason why those who believe in the power of student activism have to work so hard. As a member of CALPIRG, I have been able to witness the positive social change that students are capable of. I guarantee that if you were to dig deeper into what CALPIRG and U.S.PIRG does, you will see that these "ineffective" orgs do a hell of a lot more than those who complain about the tuition increase, expensive textbooks, and student loan availability yet… Read more »
PIRG’s PressureArash, I regret that you feel a minor administrative error equates to a complete lack of effectiveness in the entire PIRG system, but contrary to your claim that non-profits such as CalPIRG are "far too weak to withstand any pressure from the right", grassroots organizing provides enormous benefits in its community outreach that pave the way for larger social movements. It seems you may have misunderstood pledging to be a "waste" but the money is actually spent to allow CalPIRG to establish this meaningful "pressure" you seemed to place so much emphasis on. CalPIRG first utilizes such resources to… Read more »
CALPIRG is a huge, statewide student group, with around 4000 students pledged only at UCSB. We are also the only student group on campus who is required to pledge for our funding, which means the procedures for how to depledge people are not clear to new members, because they are not standard university procedures. People who join CALPIRG care about the students at this school, and to lambast our group because of a minor data error when we have to deal with more data than any other student group on campus is really unnecessary. I can guarantee that any of… Read more »
Thank you, Arash SafariArash, thank you for this very important article to raise awareness about the problems with CalPIRG. Indeed, I went through many of the same frustrations, and I am from the class of 2000. I made the mistake of pledging CalPIRG. It was then that I truly discovered how ideologically driven the group is and how little visibility there was into how my pledge money was being used. I requested – several times – to depledge, and they never once honored my request. Your witness to this concern demonstrates how these are not isolated cases of incompetence. It… Read more »
epgenius, I hope you don’t work with public relations at calpirg. How nice to call a person who donated money to you ignorant and to question his studies. Those that donated money are in the right to complain if they need to. What you need to do is handle the situation in a much more professional manner and not make up excuses. The tone from your reply would make me not want to donate.
If individuals like you are running CalPIRG, then I fully support Arash in his statements for anyone that is currently donating to CalPIRG to depledge.
“Stop Subsidizing Obesity” is the lead headline on a small pamphlet which I found at my front door in Claremont, CA. After reading this small and yet imaginative document I was upset. As a diabetic I agree with diet change in our nation. This pamphlet seems to say that it is a fact that school lunches and Food Stamps are the cause of our diet problems. This is the reasoning of a narrow thinking of a few in our nation, and I register my disagreement.
My experience of CalPirg is that they seem to be so convinced of the self-evident rectitude of all of their political opinions, that they see no problem with requesting instructional time during professor’s courses to spread their propaganda. I am shocked that they feel so bold as to ask professors for classtime to publicize their campaigns, and even more shocked that some of my colleagues allow them to speak during class time. If a professor gave classroom time to a right-wing group to “spread their message”, there would be outrage–and rightfully so. Why is there no outrage when a left-wing… Read more »