Rosenberger

In the early 1990s, a group of students from the University of Virginia formed Wide Awake Productions to produce a magazine designed to facilitate discussion of Christian theology and philosophy. The organization was recognized as an official Contracted Independent Organization by the student council, a status which allows the organization to submit bills from outside contractors for payment by the Student Activities Fund.

The organization soon printed its first issue, which had articles about prayer, racism, stress, C.S. Lewis' ideas about free will and evil, and reviews of religious music. WAP then requested that the SAF pay its printer $5,862 for the cost of publication. The funding committee of the student council denied this allocation claiming that the newspaper was a "religious activity" and therefore ineligible for funding by the SAF. WAP appealed this decision to both the entire student council body as well as the Dean of Students: both rejected the appeal and sustained the denial of funding.

WAP then took the issue to District Court, claiming the University had violated their rights to freedom of expression and to freely exercise their religious beliefs. After multiple appeals, the case appeared before the Supreme Court. The University of Virginia argued that any affiliation with a primarily religious publication would violate the Establishment Clause. The Supreme Court ruled that no such violation could take place so long as funds were distributed without regard to an organization's point of view. This stipulation, according to the court, would prevent "any mistaken impression that the student newspapers speak for the University." Thus, the Court ruled that WAP's publication costs should be paid for by the Student Activities Fund.

"Symmetry" in the Rosenberger and Southworth decision:
From the Southworth decision: "While Rosenberger was concerned with the rights a student has to use an extracurricular speech program already in place, today's case considers the antecedent question, acknowledged but unresolved in Rosenberger: whether a public university may require its students to pay a fee which creates the mechanism for the extracurricular speech in the first instance. When a university requires its students to pay fees to support the extracurricular speech of other students, all in the interest of open discussion, it may not prefer some viewpoints to others. There is symmetry then in our holding here and in Rosenberger: Viewpoint neutrality is the justification for requiring the student to pay the fee in the first instance and for ensuring the integrity of the program's operation once the funds have been collected. We conclude that the University of Wisconsin may sustain the extracurricular dimensions of its programs by using mandatory student fees with viewpoint neutrality as the operational principle."

Read the Court's opinion in Rosenberger

The Southworth Case