All across campus, cavernous holes appear in women’s restrooms. We all knew the budget cuts would bring serious compromises. But this has gone too far.

They’ve taken our tampons.

Shery Yang, senior government major, doesn’t see the point.

“Are things really that bad?” Yang said. “I just don’t see how this will make a difference in our budget, but it actually impacts us students.”

It’s laughable that something so basic is under financial scrutiny. But this is no comedy bit put on by our administrators.

“I thought we were paying more to keep these kind of services. (This is) ridiculous,” said Mandy Duron, junior communication studies major and transfer student from the University of Alaska.

We can’t turn down the air conditioning a little bit? Why are we shivering in our classrooms? Maybe if athletics weren’t the biggest focus of this administration, the rest of the students wouldn’t have to feel slash after slash. Shoot a writer for saying so.

Finding the numbers on this project has proven very difficult. Neither Accounting Services, part of the administration’s Financial Services, nor the Health Center would provide any figures regarding the cost of keeping, or the projected savings from removing, these machines.

There needs to be transparency in administrative activities that directly affect us. Students have a right to know where our money is going.

Kevin Wehr, sociology professor and Sacramento State’s California Faculty Association (CFA) chapter president, said that we’re not just paying the $9.5 million statewide cuts this year.

How about over $5 million on top of that? University Enterprises, Inc., (UEI), the school’s development arm, brings money into campus. But Seth Sandronsky at Sacramento Press explains that UEI made a series of bad real estate investments that left the school in debt.

Maybe if we weren’t cleaning up other peoples’ messes, we could afford some tampons.

“We’re all living through this budget crisis together and we’re all bearing its weight,” Wehr said. “But we really need to question our priorities, and ask if we’re making cuts from the right places.”

The Health Center’s website says that pregnancy testing is covered by our student health fee. But what about those of us whose periods aren’t late?

Those of us whose periods came a week early and didn’t have our usual emergency tampon with us – what are we supposed to do?

Any idea how much of a pain it would be to have to march on over to the Health Center every time we forgot a tampon? That’s what, a good 15 minutes out of class?

Or does this university think that we should barge back into the classroom and disrupt the lesson with our biological inconvenience? And what if no one has a tampon to give away?

This is not a service we are freely giving up. It is being taken from us, and we shouldn’t have to stand for it.

The removal of these machines didn’t just leave holes in the walls of our restrooms. The most gaping holes are where student needs were once met.

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