High Court Will Rule on College Fees Case

Should a college student be forced to financially support all student groups, even those organizations whose values the student may not support?

The United States Supreme Court will consider this question today when it hears the arguments surrounding a lawsuit filed in 1996 by a law student at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

The student, Scott Southworth, brought a suit against the university because he was being charged a $15 activity fee that, among other things, funded politically liberal organizations such as Amnesty International, the Campus Women's Center and the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Campus Center.

Southworth said he disagreed with a number of these groups' messages.

If the Supreme Court upholds the opinion already rendered by the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, public universities will no longer be able to use mandatory activity fees to finance student groups that are politically driven.

The Circuit Court ruled that compulsory fees are unjust because they can force students to support organizations whose ideologies they find objectionable.

Southworth said he first tried to avoid paying the 1995-96 annual student fees of $ 331.50 by writing a letter to the school administration. When he received no response, Southworth sued along with two other students, alleging that their First Amendment rights of free speech, association and religion had been violated.

The University of Wisconsin's public relations representative Erik A. Christianson, who is currently in Washington attending the court hearing, said his university has stood by its policy regarding the activity fee because it feels the funds have helped "create a forum for free speech" on campus.

Officials at Wisconsin's flagship university have urged the high court to rely on a ruling involving the University of Virginia four years ago. In that case, the justices said the school breached the First Amendment by refusing to provide funds for a student Christian magazine even though it subsidized nonreligious student publications. The court ruled that when a university sets up a general policy for disbursing student activity funds, that fund becomes the equivalent of a public forum, and the university must subsidize secular and religious publications on the same basis.

Because Harvard University is not a publicly funded institution, it is not subject to today's ruling.

Harvard includes an optional $20 activity fee in each student's term bill, which is then allocated by the Undergraduate Council to student groups who apply for funding.

Linda J. Greenhouse '68, who covers the Supreme Court for The New York Times, said that although the decision will not affect private schools directly, both students and administrators are probably still following the case.

Students at private universities might use the decision as grounds to question their own activity fees, said Greenhouse, a former Crimson executive.

"UC policy is that once the money is given, we distribute it to any group that meets the finance committee's requirements," said Council President Noah Z. Seton '00.

The council's finance committee distributes money based on need and the initiative a club shows toward expanding its influence.

But unlike at the University of Wisconsin, any Harvard student can opt not to pay the fee.

"I agree with [Harvard's current] policy," Seton added. "The UC isn't making ideological decisions."