Student Fees
Coming Soon: Guide to Student Activity
Fees
Campuses across the country have long found that having
a robust set of student extracurricular opportunities - from campus organizations
to speakers - enhances the student experience and the educational mission of
colleges and universities. To support and facilitate that environment, many
campuses have set up a student activity fee. Unfortunately, some campuses
struggle with how to implement the legal requirements for mandatory student
activity fees.
To help ensure that campus leaders have the resources to
understand the legal issues surrounding fee systems, we will be releasing a "Guide to Student Activity Fees" this semester. As always, our staff will also
be heading to campus to run trainings and work one-on-one with campus leaders to
help them implement legal and useful fee systems for their campuses.
Brief History of Student Fees
Student activity fees were
implemented over 100 years ago with the purpose of funding extracurricular activities
for college students. These fees were originally used to fund academic interest
clubs, the construction of recreation centers, and a myriad of other student
services. As higher education evolved and students began to demand a more active
and engaged community, universities sought to expand the scope of student activities
to include educational opportunities unavailable inside any classroom. At the
vanguard of this transition, students and administrators at schools like the
University of Oregon, the University of California-Berkeley, and the University
of Wisconsin-Madison began to use their fees to encourage civic engagement by
creating groups dedicated to social and political education and advocacy. Over
the past decades, this new use of the fee has become an integral part of the
higher education experience at the vast majority of colleges and universities
around the country.
While the educational benefits
of these student organizations are clear to students, faculty, administrators,
a handful of well-funded special interests have attempted to limit the types
of activities funded by student fees. To this end, they have filed lawsuits
and lobbied for legislation at the state and federal levels. These proposals
are driven by extremely conservative legal foundations, industry lobby groups,
and right-wing religious organizations. Three of the groups funding the legal
campaign against student fees are profiled below:
The
Alliance Defense Fund (Phoenix, AZ) describes itself as a legal defense
organization supporting "religious freedom, human life and family values" on
behalf of ministries and conservative religious organizations. Their founders
include conservative Christian leaders Bill Bright (Campus Crusade for Christ)
and James Dobson (Focus on the Family). The ADF has been an active partner in
several recent lawsuits against student fee systems.
The
Pacific Legal Foundation (Sacramento, CA) promotes libertarian ideals
of "private property rights, limited government, and the free enterprise system."
PLF is considered the oldest and largest business-sponsored "public interest"
law firm. Their corporate funders have included Phillips 66 Petroleum, Pacific
Gas & Electric, and Chevron. They are well know for their past support of DDT
and herbicide use in the national forests. PLF attorneys represented plaintiffs
in Hollingsworth v. Lane Community College (1996).
The
Individual Rights Foundation, created in 1993 by the Center for the
Study of Popular Culture (Los Angeles, CA), addresses alleged "growing threat(s)
to First Amendment rights by college administrators and government officials."
They, in addition to a Lane County (OR) timber executive supported the filing
of Rounds v. Oregon State Board of Higher Education (1996). CSPC is better know
for attacks on the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the irreverent anti-PC
monthly Heterodoxy.
"This
effort can literally eliminate millions of dollars from those who oppose biblical
values, religious freedom, and the spread of the gospel."
- excerpt from the Alliance Defense Fund's 'Defunding the Campus Left' Action
Pack
These groups would limit
an important forum for learning and debate in order to silence ideas with which
they disagree. Few of these efforts have succeeded, but more money than ever
is being spent on campaigns to limit campus speech.
Fortunately, the Courts,
recognizing the invaluable marketplace of ideas created by student fees, have
chosen not to restrict the ways in which students spend their fees. In the cases
of Rosenberger, Rounds and Riverside,
the Courts have upheld the ability of student fees to fund all types of student
activities and organizations, including those considered religious or political.
Taken in sum, these decisions set a strong legal precedent for students' rights
leading up to the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision on free speech and student
fees-Southworth
v. the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin.
Find out more about Southworth
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