Court upholds mandatory student fees

The Supreme Court ruled using student fees to fund campus grps. doesn't violate student rights. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously yesterday that public universities may use mandatory fees to fund controversial student groups, deciding against several University of Wisconsin students who had charged that their First Amendment rights were violated when their fees funded groups they did not support. The case -- Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin v. Scott Harold Southworth et al. -- has been moving through the courts since 1996. This final ruling sets a precedent for public universities across the country. "We're very pleased, of course, with the ruling that came down, which basically said that public universities can use fees to fund the groups of their choosing," University of Wisconsin system spokeswoman Sharyn Wisniewski said yesterday. "We know that the position has broad implications for universities across the nation and we're glad that we could be the national testing ground for this important issue." The case does not affect Penn, since it is a private institution. The students who brought the suit against the university named 18 student groups to which they objected, including the Campus Women's Center, the Progressive Student Network and the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual Campus Center. "As a conservative and a Christian, it was frustrating to me to see the money going to organizations I personally disagree with," said Scott Southworth, one of the students who brought the case against the university. The University of Wisconsin requires students to pay a "segregated fee" each semester. Students who do not pay the fees are not allowed to view their grades or graduate. The fees -- which totaled $445 per student for the 1999-2000 academic year -- are used both for student services such as health care and recreation and for funding of student groups. Approximately 15 percent of the fee is available for student groups who apply for funding. The court ruled that because groups representing all viewpoints had equal opportunity to obtain funding -- making the funding process "viewpoint neutral," in the court's words -- the fees did not violate the First Amendment. "If the challenged speech here were financed by tuition dollars and the University and its officials were responsible for its content, the case might be evaluated on the premise that the government itself is the speaker. That is not the case before us," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the court's majority opinion. The court's ruling overturned a decision against the university made by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in 1998 which had upheld a summary judgement by a lower court judge in 1996 that the fee was in fact a violation of the students' First Amendment rights. While the Supreme Court's decision supported the university, it questioned the school's use of referenda as one of the various methods used to distribute funds to student groups. The Supreme Court remanded that issue to a lower court, which will investigate whether the process violates the principle of viewpoint neutrality. Adam Klaus, chairman of the Associated Students of Madison, the group that allocates funds from the student fees, said the Supreme Court had not been presented with enough information concerning the use of referenda. Klaus said that the votes were non-binding and that groups that were included in referendum were subject to the same limitations as other student groups. "I don't think it's going to be a problem," he added. "I think we'll address it when we come to it." The case against Wisconsin was one of several suits challenging the legality of mandatory student fees at universities. The Associated Press contributed to this story.

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