Students overwhelmingly voted in favor of the Student Union's constitutional amendment to reshape the club funding system last week. The amendment passed Friday after the Union Judiciary Thursday night denied an injunction request from WBRS to seal the election results (full story).Twelve-hundred-and-fifty-one students voted in favor of the referendum, while 474 voted against. With nearly 73 percent of the voting students in favor of the amendment, the outcome decisively exceeded the 2/3 requirement for a constitutional amendment. The election saw the highest turnout of any vote in Brandeis history, Union officials said.

"This incredible margin speaks to how adamantly students felt this reform was needed, and how much support we will have to make this significant change," Feinberg wrote in a campuswide e-mail following the election.

Before the changes can be enacted, the Board of Trustees has to give its approval. Feinberg said she is "100 percent" sure the Trustees will approve.

Every student pays a fee equal to onepercent of tuition into the SAF that totals nearly $1 million. Currently, eight secured groups-receive about 60 percent of the SAF and the F-Board is given 40 percent of the fund to allocate to over 200 chartered groups.

The amendment will potentially make more money available for these groups through cuts from secured groups, who will no longer receive a guaranteed set percentage of the total fund.

Feinberg, who made SAF reform a defining issue of her administration, referred further comment to newly-inaugurated Union president Alison Schwartzbaum '08, citing the end of her term as president.

Schwartzbaum, as the former Executive Senator, was a key proponent of the reform efforts. "I'm obviously very happy that it passed," she said. "I'm proud of the student body for really being so engaged with something that affects their everyday life here at Brandeis so much."

$100,000 dollars of extra funding could potentially find its way into chartered groups' accounts because of the amendment.

Six of the eight groups-excluding BTV and Waltham Group-will see significant budget cuts, and excluding the Justice and the Union, groups will now have to justify their expenses before the F-board, instead of needing approval only from the Union treasurer.

Those six groups will be assigned a recommended baseline amount of money to request for their budgets, and will be granted "reasonable operating expenses consistent with the approved purpose" of the group.

WBRS General Manager Julie Craghead '07 told the Justice last Saturday that WBRS would fight the amendment because the Union had failed to explain the full ramifications of the reform to the student body.

"It's unfortunate that WBRS seems to doubt the intelligence of the student body." Feinberg said. She said students are "very aware" of the amendment's meaning.

Craghead changed her stance Monday, saying she would not comment on whether WBRS would fight the amendment.

Archon Editor in Chief Rebecca Gedalius '06, who is also a copyeditor for the Justice and who served on the UJ panel that unanimously rejected WBRS' injunction request, expressed disappointment that the amendment passed. She attributed its passing to "a few good posters" the Union created.

"This amendment will drastically harm the Archon," she said. "Students don't have all the facts."

For two weeks prior to the vote, Union officials conducted a comprehensive campus campaign.

It wasn't until the Sunday before the vote that three secured media groups, WBRS, BTV and the Archon, began their own campaign.

The Union's optimism for an easy passage of the amendment seemed to wane as the opposition became more vocal. The Sunday before the vote, senators went into Executive Session, closed to the public, for nearly an hour to discuss how to respond to the opposition.