Five students at the University of Minnesota have followed in the footsteps of Wisconsin students and sued their school over the allocation of student fees. The suit raises questions about whether students who object to the content of a student publication could contest the fact that student fee money goes to support it. The university says that the student activities fees system is needed to keep diversity on the campus.
Student organizations facilitate the discussion of ideas and stimulate robust campus debate.
University President Mark Yudof said that it is not fair to favor one student group over another with activities fees. We cannot discriminate among organizations on the basis of their political or religious ideas and positions. A February report in The Minnesota Daily , the Twin Cities campus student newspaper, said that two groups were planning to intervene. According to the article, members of the Queer Student Cultural Center had asked the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, a national group for gay and lesbian rights, to help them intervene in the case. A similar case in Wisconsin is being appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.