WATERLOO - A University of Waterloo student group is scrambling to figure out how it will continue projects that tackle issues from tenants' rights to lower tuition after fellow students voted to withdraw its funding.

The Waterloo Public Interest Research Group (WPIRG), formed in 1973, has long supported social justice and environmental issues on campus and around Waterloo Region.

But the group's future is uncertain after students voted to eliminate their $4.75 fee for WPIRG - or about $270,000 in annual funding - a decision that could effect a range of initiatives from food for the poor, a local gay film festival, Black History Month celebrations and mental health awareness campaigns.

About a quarter of Waterloo undergraduates took part in the referendum, and 82 per cent voted to remove the automatic WPIRG fee.

The debate over WPIRG's funding started after its controversial support for an offshoot called the Palestine Solidarity Action Group, which calls for a boycott of Israeli universities.

That drew the attention of some Canadian Jewish lobby groups, who argued the boycott is anti-Semitic. They got involved in the campaign to sway Waterloo students to revoke WPIRG's funding.

"The Jewish community is tired of being targeted. There are a lot of groups that are dedicated to fighting back," said Amanda Hohmann, national director of the League for Human Rights, an agency of B'nai Brith Canada.

After the referendum, B'nai Brith Canada issued a statement celebrating the Waterloo vote and accused WPIRG of instigating a debate that increased anti-Semitism on campus.

"I don't know very much about WPIRG. I'm sure they have a lot of lovely initiatives, but when you have one anti-Semitic initiative mixed in, I think rightly the Jewish community is not going to just take that," Hohmann said.

WPIRG, meanwhile, says the anti-Semitic accusations are harmful and argue the Israeli boycott, also known as the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement, is an issue of human rights, not religion.

While B'nai Brith Canada didn't send representatives to campus, Hohmann says other Jewish advocacy groups were there to provide a pro-Isreal viewpoint - although she said she didn't know which organizations specifically. But her group was asked by some students to provide anti-boycott materials to be used during the referendum, she said.

Shalaka Jadhav, a board member with WPIRG, wonders how much outside interference in the student referendum helped turn the tide of opinion against her group.

"The vast majority of students were misinformed," she said. "It's kind of scary that there was potentially third-party influence in this referendum. Students should be able to have independent thought without outside influence."

Marcus Abramovitch, a Waterloo chemistry student who led the campaign to remove WPIRG's funding, said while the debate may have started as a backlash to the Israeli boycott, it became about accountability and how WPIRG spends its money.

WPIRG simply spends too much on salaries and not enough on actual issues that affect students, he said.

The group was also embracing divisive political causes without being accountable to the students who paid their bills, Abramovitch said. They should instead run as a nonprofit, rather than receive automatic funding, he said.

"Students don't really know about WPIRG, yet they're paying a fee to them every term. WPIRG is taking political positions on their behalf, which they do not necessarily support," he said. "Students should have a say in where their money goes. The bang for your buck is really, really low."

Earlier this year, Abramovitch led a campaign to defeat a motion to cut academic ties with Israeli universities. He said students were being "harassed" into signing a boycott petition, and WPIRG didn't act in the public interest by taking an aggressive political stance.

After that boycott was shot down, he thanked the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, StandWithUs and Hillel for their help. But he insists the more recent campaign to remove WPIRG's funding was exclusively student-run.

"I have a hard time believing that," Jadhav said. "That sort of influence seems prominent. It certainly feels connected."

WPIRG's administrative costs aren't out of line with other students groups, she said. The group fills a gap in support on campus for a wide range of communities, and fights for long-term causes that don't always show immediate results, she said.

Jana Omar, a co-op student with WPIRG, said the referendum won't stop the debate on campus around an Israeli boycott. But it does mean other local projects that help students will suffer.

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"It unfortunately dwarfed a lot of other things WPIRG had done up to that point and is doing still," she said. "As a student, I feel frustrated, and I feel betrayed, personally."

WPIRG will continue to work on issues that affect students and others in Waterloo Region - but will have to do so without their largest source of funding, Jadhav added.

"I don't think our works ends here by any means . I think it'll take some creativity to figure out what we can do with our limited funds and limited resources," she said.