At the UW, a significant amount of the traditional organizing work happens within RSO’s, or Registered Student Organizations. Becoming an RSO offers material support from the UW, but with significant downsides that you should know before you try to start one. I hope this brief discussion of the pros and cons of registering a student organization is helpful to those trying to figure out how to best use their time at UW to build collective power.

Pros of Starting an RSO

The main advantage to starting an RSO is access to the university resources that come with the status. As an RSO, groups get access to a printing budget, university rooms to hold events in, and get access to the HUB’s RSO Resource center, a common area full of art supplies and other resources. 

“Using UW resources is a huge benefit” James, a student who had just started an RSO told the nightly in an interview. “The RSO gave us the ability to reserve a space and to even have a room where we could have 70 or so people.” Full interview with James and the YCL will be part of a future article. 

Starting an RSO offers many material benefits to groups, however, these are not without conditions and downsides…

Cons of Starting an RSO

The first thing to note is that starting an RSO involves a lot of tedious paperwork, rules, and bureaucracy. “There are some hoops to jump through in the set up portion, which you know, they are barriers so it might not be the best option for everybody, to start an RSO'' - James continued. Groups are expected to have a constitution, bylaws, procedures, and officers all in place.

Having a formal structure and the five officers that UW requires can force an implication of hierarchy onto the space, making it more difficult to be truly horizontally structured, if that is the goal. People listed as officers will also have their names and contact information listed on the Internet. Not only does this decrease privacy, but it could come at huge expense to the personal and group safety, especially if the group’s focus turns more towards direct action, praxis, and other more radical action. Groups are forced to choose between radical action and personal safety to an extent that they didn’t have to before registering as an RSO.

“You have now made yourself very visible to the university.” - James told The Nightly.

Officers and RSO’s are expected to pay by the rules, set out by the university. James explained, “There are rules and regulations that one has to follow when you are an RSO… There are some rules that you have to follow as an RSO that you might not have to follow or might get to be a little less intentional about without an RSO.” The UW can threaten the 5 students designated as officers with legal action for actions taken by the group– especially if it’s something that the UW deems to be damaging to the University. Not that they will– but they could.

Our Take

All together, registering as a student organization seems counterproductive if radical direct action and mutual aid is the goal. While the promise of UW support and resources seems tempting, they give you all these things with strings attached. While organizing intentions are usually coming from a good place, registering a radical student group with the University, seeks approval from the very institutions we are trying to dismantle. This may corrupt and hinder organizing efforts from day one. 

What We Should Do?

It’s not as easy as just saying ‘let’s not do the RSO thing anymore.’ People still choose to register as RSOs largely because it is hard to find resources elsewhere. Finding ways to decrease reliance on the university system should be a high priority. A good place to start is building alternative micro support systems for our community. This could look like:

1. Sharing resources between students (and groups of students) to reduce the amount they would need to buy or borrow collectively.
   
   

2. Finding alternative venues for holding small gatherings and looking for nearby non-UW locations that might let you hold larger events.

3. Subverting resources that would have otherwise been used by harmful institutions (like the university) and using them to build collective power instead.
   
   

4. Talking to existing RSO’s, that are chill, and maybe ask if they could help your group could borrow/get access to the above aforementioned benefits on occasion. Should be avoided when not necessary as it still relies on the university system– just in a roundabout and indirect way.
   
   

5. Getting along and working together, we’re all in this fight together and can be each other's most important resource.

Published 12-5-23