Graduate Student Council (GSC) members were split over a bill on ethical spending at its Monday meeting. The council sent the bill back to its authors following deliberation last week.

The joint bill with the Undergraduate Senate (UGS) would establish an ethical spending committee within the Associated Students of Stanford University (ASSU) to identify vendors and investments that “fail to demonstrate appropriate regard for human and environmental welfare,” in accordance with the University’s Statement on Investment Responsibility. The committee would also advise the ASSU on the ethics of its funding.

Zev Granowitz, GSC co-treasurer and fourth-year mechanical-engineering Ph.D. student, analyzed five years of voluntary student organization (VSO) funding provided by the council and found that a large majority of the corresponding spending went to local stores and restaurants. Granowitz said the impact of other spending toward potentially problematic external companies like Amazon is likely “quite small” — comprising just 5%, or less than $10,000 annually, of the spending.

“I feel like we have a solution that is looking for a problem and that has negative side effects for some clubs,” Granowitz said of the proposed committee. Cultural clubs, for example, might feel “alienated” if their purchases from certain companies or countries were labeled unethical.

Emmit Pert, GSC co-chair and fifth-year chemistry Ph.D. student, said he viewed the issue “less in the context of specific dollar amounts and more about responsiveness to student concerns.” Since students have previously raised concerns about spending, the committee could be “a useful mechanism to address those,” Pert said, even if its monetary effect is small.

The GSC plans to vote on the bill after further discussions with the ASSU about its investments.

GSC co-treasurers also proposed changes to its funding guidelines that would encourage graduate VSOs to rely on annual grants over quick grant requests. The GSC currently provides quick grants that graduate VSOs can request ad hoc, alongside annual grants for larger clubs with higher expenses.

Andy Yin, Co-treasurer and third-year mathematics Ph.D. student, said the goal of the change is to have more VSOs make annual grant requests as opposed to quick grant requests in order to encourage “long-term thinking” from club leadership and give the GSC a clearer picture of club expenses.

The councilors were not all on board. Some councilors voiced concerns that annual grants might constrain club leaders to funding decisions made by their predecessors.

The GSC plans to vote on the funding guideline changes after discussion with other stakeholders.