Wednesday, March 22, 2000

Supreme Court Unanimously Backs Mandatory Student Fees in Wisconsin Case By PETER SCHMIDT Washington The U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously this morning that the University of Wisconsin at Madison does not violate the First Amendment rights of students when it uses their mandatory-fee payments to finance campus groups that they oppose. The court rejected the argument by a group of Wisconsin students that the university's fee system violates some students' rights to free speech and free association, by effectively forcing them to financially support groups whose views they find objectionable on political, ideological, or religious grounds. The Supreme Court's ruling overturned a 1998 decision by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, which struck down the university's fee policy as unconstitutional. Writing for the court, Associate Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said that "the First Amendment permits a public university to charge its students an activity fee used to fund a program to facilitate extracurricular student speech if the program is viewpoint neutral." Wisconsin's system for collecting and distributing student fees meets that test, the court concluded. "The speech the University seeks to encourage in the program before us is distinguished not by discernible limits but by its vast, unexplored bounds. To insist upon asking what speech is germane would be contrary to the very goal the University seeks to pursue. It is not for the Court to say what is or is not germane to the ideas to be pursued in an institution of higher learning." Although it generally upheld the university's right to collect student fees to support student groups, the Supreme Court directed a lower court to more fully examine one of three methods used by the Wisconsin student government to decide which groups are to receive funds. "It appears that by majority vote of the student body," Justice Kennedy wrote, a given student group "may be funded or defunded. It is unclear to us what protection, if any, there is for viewpoint neutrality in this part of the process. To the extent the referendum substitutes majority determinations for viewpoint neutrality it would undermine the constitutional protection the program requires." Had the Supreme Court ruled the other way in the Wisconsin case, many public colleges could have been forced to rethink, or even scrap, their mandatory-fee policies. About 70 percent of the nation's public universities rely on mandatory student fees to finance student activities, according to the National Association for Campus Activities. Several similar challenges to mandatory-fee policies have been brought in other state or federal courts over the past decade. Most, like the Wisconsin case, have been mounted by students who identify themselves as conservative Christians and do not want their fee dollars going to student groups that they regard as liberal, leftist, or favoring abortion or gay rights. Partly because the Supreme Court had not ruled on the dispute until now, the previous court decisions have resulted in a patchwork of different precedents, some of them conflicting. Last year, in two separate cases involving Oregon public colleges, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld mandatory student-fee systems after concluding that the money supported a variety of views, without directly linking the students paying the fees to any of them. The plaintiffs in one of the lawsuits, against the University of Oregon, had sought to appeal the ruling to the full Ninth Circuit, but that court put the case on hold pending the Supreme Court's ruling in the Wisconsin case. The Seventh Circuit's ruling in the case had contained one of the most sweeping rebukes of such policies ever issued by a federal court. It repudiated the argument, accepted by courts elsewhere, that supporting an array of student groups is an important part of a university's educational mission. It also rejected the university's proposal to refund to students that portion of their fees going to groups that they opposed; such a system, it held, would infringe on the constitutional rights of students from the moment they paid their fees until the money was returned. In overturning that ruling, the Supreme Court said the Seventh Circuit had relied too heavily on Supreme Court precedents that involved the collection of membership dues by trade unions and professional associations. Unlike those organizations, the university uses fees to finance all sorts of political expression, rather than a specific agenda, the Supreme Court said. It held that the university is distinct from those other groups in that it is a government agency with a clear interest in promoting the exchange of ideas. And, unlike the members of unions or associations, students are not presumed to belong to the organizations supported with their fees. Fifteen states had joined a long list of college, student, and political organizations in submitting friend-of-the-court briefs in support of the University of Wisconsin. Several had warned the Supreme Court that a decision to strike down the university's fee policy would have a disastrous impact on campus groups that represent minority students or espouse unpopular views, and that therefore would find it hard to survive on voluntary support. The plaintiffs in the case were supported by several conservative organizations that provided their legal representation or submitted friend-of-the-court briefs arguing that the university's current fee system does not support the exchange of ideas so much as liberal advocacy. Background articles from The Chronicle: Supreme Court Hears Arguments Over Constitutionality of Mandatory Student Fees (11/19/1999) U.S. Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Case on Mandatory Fees at U. of Wisconsin (3/30/1999) U. of Wisconsin Will Ask Supreme Court to Uphold Broad Use of Mandatory Student Fees (11/9/1998) Appeals Court Upholds Limits on Mandatory Student Fees at U. of Wisconsin (11/6/1998) Opinion: What a Recent Court Ruling Means for Required Student Fees (9/25/1998) U.S. Appeals Court Bars U. of Wisconsin From Forcing Students to Finance Political Groups (9/4/1998) Courts Diverge on Colleges' Use of Mandatory Student Fees (8/8/1997) Judge Says Mandatory Fees at Wisconsin Violate Student Rights (12/13/1996) Documents: The Supreme Court's decision (3/22/2000) Opinions filed when the full Seventh Circuit refused to consider an appeal of the case (10/27/1998) The appeals-court panel's decision (8/10/1998) The district-court ruling, which the appeals panel upheld (12/9/1996) A Supreme Court decision on which the district-court ruling was based (6/29/1995) Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

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