Members of the Arizona Students' Association visited a strip club during a recent trip to Tucson that was funded by student money, student officials said.
The trip occurred on March 11 and 12, during the Arizona Board of Regents meeting. The expenses incurred during the trip, including travel, hotel costs and food costs, were paid by the ASA, which is funded by a $2 annual fee from all Arizona students.
Russell Reiten, an ASA director from Northern Arizona University, said the members who went to the club did not use ASA funds for that outing.
"We're all responsible adults," he said. "We can go and do what we want. It doesn't mean the whole time we're down there that's what we do."
Reiten also said he could see how some students would object to ASA representatives going to a strip club on a student-funded trip, but "there are objections to everything.
"I could see how a lot of students wouldn't care."
ASA's Executive Director Maceo Brown also went to the strip club with other ASA and student government members, said a high-ranking ASU student government official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Brown declined to comment when reached by The State Press.
While many of the ASA members who visited the strip club do not receive a salary, the board recently tried to change that.
ASA considered a bill Thursday to give each member a $1,000 stipend.
The conditions of the stipend were not determined at the meeting, but some members discussed revoking the stipend if members don't attend meetings.
"It will increase productivity of the board and make the board accountable to the students," said Alistair Chapman, ASA director from the University of Arizona.
Undergraduate Student Government President Brandon Goad said the money should just be given to each campus' student governments to "start off their ASA year" and that each school could determine the specifics of using the money.
Reach the reporter at lindsay.butler@asu.edu
