Supreme Court Debates Student Activities Fees

by Shuman Alam

The U.S. Supreme Court began debating on November 9th whether students at public universities should pay fees to fund campus groups that advocate political or ideological views with which they disagree.

A small group of students sued the University of Wisconsin-Madison under the banner of the Christian Coalition, arguing that students should have the right to choose not to pay student activity fees if they find certain groups’ ideological and political views objectionable.

The Coalition, describing themselves as opponents of abortion rights and homosexual rights, challenged allocation of the fees. Amnesty International, the Madison AIDS Support Network, International Socialist Organization, and Students for National Organization of Women are some of the groups the university funds that the Christian Coalition finds objectionable.

Students at the University of Wisconsin paid $331.50 for activity fees for the 1995-96 school year.
Some justices in the court were concerned about students’ money being funneled to groups that have definite political objectives. Justice Steven Breyer expressed concerns that liberal organizations get more funding.
These Justices failed to realize that the Christian Coalition traditionally has one political objective—to destroy the democratic tradition the universities upheld for practicing the First Amendment rights and freedom of speech.
Wisconsin Assistant Attorney General Susan Ullman, defending the University, pointed out that activity fees contribute to a public forum on campus. Justice Anthony Kennedy argued that universities have historically provided a forum for political, ideological and social debates since “ancient times.”

The justices of the court and the attorney general’s office did not point out that student activities are not always separate from educational activities. Many people feel that student activities enrich the educational understanding of students and need to be seen as part of university’s responsibilities.

The attitude of many conservatives came out clearly in the comments of Justice David Souter, who thinks that student groups should finance themselves from membership dues or other fundraising activities.

Justice Souter did not mention that the fundraising capacity of public school students is limited. Groups like the Christian Coalition can often obtain money from well-funded conservative foundations but the organizations targeted by them usually can’t. They are often victims of class, race, gender or sexual biases.

The University urged the court to expand on a 1995 decision when it ruled that universities should set up general policy for distributing funds for all student groups. A ruling in this case is expected to be announced in spring 2000. Although this case ruling will only be applied at the University of Wisconsin, the ruling could change the environment of public colleges all around the country.

Most deeply affected could be universities such as CUNY that serve primarily working class and poor students. Student activities mainly depend on school funding, and the democratic environment could be deeply jeopardized.
On the heels of the attacks on CUNY, an attack on activity fees could be used as a weapon against certain groups or activists, and the struggle for such things as saving open admissions and remediation could be deeply hampered.