Mandatory student fees vs. Right to speech

Money to fund campus activities doesn't grow on trees.

Rather, when students want to hold an event or start an organization, they usually must apply for funding from their university's student governments.

To handle these requests, popularly elected student governments — like the USG at Princeton — have specific criteria organizations must fulfill, but ultimately they may use their own discretion in making decisions. The money they distribute is provided by mandatory student fees. The process may seem simple. But at the University of Wisconsin Law School at Madison, it has been a source of controversy. In an ongoing court case, three students have filed suit against the university, claiming that mandatory student fees were a violation of their first amendment rights of free speech and free association.

"Part of their student fees were going to subsidize political and ideological groups on campus whose publicly expressed views were anathema to their own," explained Wilson School professor Russ Nieli.

The students, who were politically conservative, objected to liberal groups that advocated socialist, feminists, environmentalist, and homosexual goals.

According to Nieli, the plaintiffs had a "strong constitutional case in so far as the First Amendment guarantees of freedom of speech and freedom of association have been interpreted by recent federal courts to include the corresponding right not to speak and not to associate, and the right not to be compelled by governmental entities to subsidize private political or ideological activity with which on disagrees."

After receiving rulings in their favor at the federal district court and appeals court levels, the case made its way to the Supreme Court. In a unanimous ruling, the Supreme Court adopted the view that the University of Wisconsin was attempting to foster a community with diverse viewpoints rather than force students to agree or endorse any of the groups in question.

In a caveat, however, the Supreme Court ruled that money must be given in a viewpoint-neutral manner. In other words, groups cannot be included or excluded on the basis of specific ideological convictions.

But after the Supreme Court final ruling last March, the Wisconsin students changed their allegation to claim that student bias and discretion was enacted in the procedure.

Taking this into consideration, another federal court ruled the viewpoint-neutral system the University of Wisconsin presented was unconstitutional because student government and popularly elected officials retained too much power. Because of this discretionary power, Shabaz found that there was not a simple funding rule to ensure viewpoint neutrality.

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Though the Projects Board at Princeton maintains specific criteria for granting funds to student groups — such as the availability of other funding sources, the number of students attending an event, cost-effectiveness, and the clarity of the goals of an event — the issues at heart in the University of Wisconsin case do not apply to Princeton, Nieli explained. The University is a non-governmental actor.

"The First Amendment guarantees were originally applied only against actions involving the national government and were subsequently expanded, under the 'incorporation' interpretation of the 14th Amendment, to include state and local governments as well," Nieli explained.

Hypothetically, Princeton could subsidize only politically left-leaning groups and it would not be unconstitutional because the University is not acting as an agent of the state.

"The situation is almost parallel to the election of political officials to uphold the constitution," Politics professor Seanna Sugrue explained. "They are elected by law to participate in student government and to uphold the laws in their constitution."

Sugrue said that the case is focused on what sort of criteria are agreed upon within student government.

"There are many different meanings of the issue of neutrality," Sugrue said. The goal of the University remains, however, to foster a diversity of viewpoints, Sugrue noted.

Joseph Wheatley '01, former Projects Board co-chair, said the USG at Princeton was more concerned with effectiveness and efficiency of the group requesting funding.

"In evaluating a funding proposal, we placed a great deal of emphasis upon how effectively [or] efficiently the event was planned," Wheatley said. "For instance, if it was apparent that the group tried to fund-raise beforehand, had drafted a budget with quoted prices and had a clear plan to execute the event, we made every effort on the Projects Board to meet their need."

Focusing on the efficiency and logistics of an event has allowed the Projects Board to avoid having to evaluate the philosophical merit of a group, USG president Joe Kochan '02 said.

"I am a strong proponent of our funding system, which evaluates groups not on the philosophical merit of their proposal, but on issues such as how many students an event will attract and how effectively they plan to spend the grant for which they are applying," he said.

"I think this helps us avoid the slippery slope of evaluating which groups' events are 'worthwhile' or not," Kochan added.

In addition to the Project Board's ability to grant funds to student groups, it frequently refers groups to other sources such as specific departments and the Trustees Alcohol Initiative, Wheatley said.

"In my experience, we [have] never exercised bias, nor have I heard of any other Projects Board administration exercising bias," Wheatley said. "I cannot recall the Projects Board ever denying a group funding entirely. In most cases, we met their need — in conjunction with the dean's Office — or met as much as funding constraints allowed."

"In the latter case, we often funded the portion of their request that could not be met by alternate funding sources," he explained.

Though the University of Wisconsin has failed to develop a satisfactory neutral-viewpoint system to date, Nieli said he felt that there could be a system that complies with the court's orders.

"Whether there is an easy way out of this constitutional dilemma, I do not know," Nieli said. "But if the IRS can come up with fairly neutral rules regarding tax breaks for all manner of religious organizations from the Hare Krishna's to the Mormons, I don't see why determined academics and their lawyers can't do this also for political, philosophical, and ideological groups on their campuses."

However, Nieli and Sugrue both felt that it might be easier if the University accomplished the same goals of promoting diversity through different channels.

"It might be better simply for state institutions to drop the whole business of subsidizing political and ideological groups, which usually represent only a small portion of the student groups they do fund, and let them seek funding elsewhere," Nieli said. "There are many other ways to encourage forums where diverse viewpoints can be heard — like subsidizing guest speakers and intellectual round tables — that do not involve giving money to partisan organizations."