The Tufts Community Union Judiciary (TCUJ) de-recognized Radix, the self-proclaimed "journal of liberal and radical thought" at Tufts, on Monday, April 25.
According to TCUJ Vice-Chair sophomore Jake Resnicow, de-recognizing a group leads to the immediate loss of all priveleges given to TCU groups, including loss of group budget and restriction from using campus rooms and facilities to hold meetings.
Senior Joshua Koritz, one of the signatories of the Radix group, which, according to its constitution, treats every member of the group as an officer, said the reason for the magazine's shutdown was a lack of interest among undergraduates.
"The goal of Radix was to produce a radical left-wing publication on campus, and I think that it is really a shame that there was such a lack of interest," he said.
"It is unfortunate that Radix has been de-recognized," Resnicow said. "Very often, you find new groups with a great deal of passion to make things happen and bring diversity and wonderful events and activities to the student body. However, as students graduate and go abroad, sometimes leaders of student groups fail to pass along the torch."
According to Resnicow, the TCUJ re-recognizes groups at Tufts every two years, or upon request. The process is "about determining the viability of the student organization."
"It is similar to an audit, but if your group has been active on campus and fulfilling its constitutional purpose ... [it] is very simple and painless to complete," Resnicow said.
In early April, when the TCUJ began the process of re-recognizing Radix, the TCU Treasury reported that only 0.34 percent of the group's budget had been used.
"[Radix] had co-sponsored a couple of events, but a large portion of their [approximate] $8,000 budget had been unused," Resnicow said.
Around that same time, TCUJ Advocacy Chair junior Jordana Starr had said in an e-mail to the rest of the TCUJ that Radix was run mostly by seniors and graduate students, and was terribly disorganized. Starr said that many of the articles for the magazine were written but unedited and mostly outdated. If the group were to be re-recognized, she advised that its budget would be cut sharply since they had not used any money.
"The essential purpose and goal of Radix is to publish a magazine, and they had not done so yet," Resnicow said.
TCUJ members set up multiple times for Radix members to meet with them and explain their lack of publishing and to prove that they were a viable group at Tufts. Resnicow said that Radix members cited printer problems as one of the reasons why they had not published an issue yet this semester. Signatories Koritz and senior Jenny Lederer were also unable to attend several TCUJ meetings to discuss the group.
"We realize that school work or other obligations come up that would prevent you from getting everything together. However, we wanted to see that this was an isolated incident and that we could count on Radix to print regularly in the future," said Resnicow.
When Radix members failed to go to the April 19 meeting with the TCUJ, Koritz sent an e-mail to the TCUJ that they would accept de-recognition because the group did not have the manpower to function as its constitution required.
According to Resnicow, the TCUJ de-recognized only a handful of groups this semester. Among others, the SCUBA Club, Turkish Students Association and the Tufts Financial Journal were de-recognized along with Radix.
Twenty-six new groups were recognized by the TCUJ, which brings the total, after subtracting the few de-recognized groups, to 167 officially recognized TCU groups on the Tufts campus.
