WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court, taking on a major issue that divides college campuses, agreed yesterday to rule on students' right to prevent the use of their activity fees to fund groups whose views they oppose.
The outcome of a case from Wisconsin could determine not only how student fees are spent at state-run colleges and universities, but also might settle whether universities simply give up subsidies for student groups to avoid the controversy, forcing those groups to raise their own funds.
Some college administrators say they are being put in a bind: A 1995 Supreme Court ruling requires them to give all campus groups equal access to student activity fees, yet some individual students are gaining the right to veto the use of payments they make to finance these groups.
Objecting students contend that the Supreme Court has long allowed some workers to object to unions' use of their mandatory fees to finance political activities, so it should do the same for students required to pay activity fees as part of the price of attending college.
Wisconsin state officials, appealing the new case to the Supreme Court, said the dispute is "of great national importance to public universities across the nation as they struggle with determining how to fund student activities, while respecting the rights of students who object to funding views with which they disagree."
One of the University of Wisconsin groups whose subsidy was challenged in the case, the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Campus Center, said the lower court ruling favoring the objecting students "allows the popularity of a political or ideological message to dictate the extent of participation" in fee-funded campus life.
Students at that university in Madison must pay an activity fee of $165.75 each semester, with the money divided between funds distributed under the university regents' control and those distributed under student control.
Only the latter category of funds is affected by the case.
In 1996, three law school students at the university sued to challenge the distribution of fee money to groups whose views they oppose -- including the gay and lesbian group, the Campus Women's Center, an AIDS support network, a group favoring same-sex marriage and one against the death penalty.
The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals based in Chicago ruled last August that forcing public college and university students to subsidize groups whose views they do not share is a violation of their First Amendment rights.
The Supreme Court will decide the case in the term starting in October.
In a separate case, the court refused -- over two justices' dissents -- to consider reviving an affirmative action plan giving women, blacks and Hispanics some preference in gaining promotions in the Dallas fire department.
A federal appeals court struck down the plan, saying there was not enough evidence of past discrimination against those groups to justify giving them promotions ahead of white males.
The court gave no explanation for refusing to hear the city of Dallas' appeal.
In another order, the court left intact a federal appeals court ruling that a city council in Murray City, Utah, did not act unconstitutionally in opening its meetings with prayer.
The lower court also said city councils may let members of the public offer the prayer and may open that opportunity only to those who would not criticize the government.
Pub Date: 3/30/99