Ruling May Alter Colleges’ Use of Student Activity Fees

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. —  As students return to campus this fall, American colleges are struggling to interpret a Supreme Court ruling that cleared the way for the public funding of religious activity.

In a decision that some legal experts believe will lead to the end of mandatory student fees, the court ruled this summer that the University of Virginia wrongly denied funding to Wide Awake, a student-run Christian magazine.

Conservative Christians hailed the ruling as a victory for religious freedom, while critics called it the first chip in the wall separating church and state.

And at least two Supreme Court justices suggested that it may force colleges to reconsider their policies requiring students to pay activity fees, which may then be used to fund religious activities that they find objectionable.

“Everybody is going to need to consider change,” said Dennis Black, an attorney and associate vice president for student affairs at State University of New York at Buffalo.

The ruling arose from a case involving three students who sued the University of Virginia after it refused to provide the Christian magazine they published with $5,800 for printing costs, forcing them to suspend publication after four issues.

Ronald Rosenberger, co-founder of the magazine, and two other students filed suit charging the university with violating their rights to free speech and religious freedom. The court agreed by a vote of 5 to 4.

The University of Virginia’s refusal to fund the magazine because of its Christian viewpoint “was a denial of the right of free speech and would risk fostering a pervasive bias or hostility to religion,” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the court.

Financing the magazine does not violate the doctrine of church-state separation, Kennedy wrote, because the aid program is neutral and the magazine is not a religious institution.

In his dissent, Justice David H. Souter predicted that the court’s action would make “a shambles out of student activity fees in public colleges.”

Some college administrators and attorneys agree.

“Can we get sued for what we are doing?” Catholic University law professor Robert A. Destro asked in a Chronicle of Higher Education article. “Yes, you can, and yes, you will.”

Last month, the University of Virginia’s governing board asked a committee to come up with a plan that will make student fees at least partially optional, to avoid future lawsuits. The board had considered abolishing the student activity fee, which is used to underwrite a wide variety of student-sponsored activities.

Anthony Caso of California’s Pacific Legal Foundation said colleges will have to begin making optional at least the portion of student activity fees used to support specific ideological or political agendas.

The California Supreme Court ruled in March that spending student activity fees on activities that advance political, religious or ideological interests is illegal. That ruling sought to protect students from being forced to underwrite causes they strongly oppose, while also preserving free-speech rights.

California’s universities are waiting to see how the federal ruling is interpreted by the trustees of its higher education institutions.

“We’re sort of stuck in the middle,” said Tony Garcia, a student affairs officer at UCLA.

And Thomas Poole, director of student activities at Penn State, said his school decided to begin funding religious organizations three years ago and has seen no negative fallout from the policy.

“There is no reason religious organizations should be put at a disadvantage,” Poole said. “We shouldn’t ban ideas from campus.”

Already, dozens of colleges have called the University of Virginia’s student government and student affairs offices to see how the school is interpreting the Supreme Court ruling.

At SUNY in Buffalo, Black said, “It’s either going to pressure our students to increase fees or they will have to split the student fee financial pie in smaller and smaller slices, perhaps diluting the true campus benefit of the activities.”