Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/09pdf/08-1371.pdf
Page Number: 69.0

Cite as:  561 U. S. ____ (2010) 

21 

ALITO, J., dissenting 

JUSTICE STEVENS joins, acknowledges this rule.  See ante, 
at 13. 

JUSTICE  STEVENS  also  maintains  that  the  Nondiscrimi-
nation  Policy  is  viewpoint  neutral  because  it  prohibits  all
groups,  both  religious  and  secular,  from  engaging  in  reli-
gious  speech.  See  ante,  at  3.    This  argument  is  also  con-
trary  to  established  law.    In  Rosenberger,  the  dissent, 
which  JUSTICE  STEVENS  joined,  made  exactly  this  argu-
ment.  See  515  U. S.,  at  895–896  (opinion  of  Souter,  J.). 
The  Court  disagreed,  holding  that  a  policy  that  treated
secular  speech  more  favorably  than  religious  speech  dis-
criminated  on  the  basis  of  viewpoint.4    515  U. S.,  at  831. 
The Court reaffirmed this holding in Good News Club, 533 
U. S., at 112, and n. 4. 

Here,  the  Nondiscrimination  Policy  permitted  member-
ship requirements that expressed a secular viewpoint.  See 
App.  93.  (For  example,  the  Hastings  Democratic  Caucus
and  the  Hastings  Republicans  were  allowed  to  exclude 
members  who  disagreed  with  their  parties’  platforms.) 
But  religious  groups  were  not  permitted  to  express  a
religious  viewpoint  by  limiting  membership  to  students
who shared their religious viewpoints.  Under established 

—————— 

4 In  Rosenberger  the  university  argued  that  the  denial  of  student 
activity  funding  for  all  groups  that  sought  to  express  a  religious  view-
point was “facially neutral.”  See Brief for Respondents in Rosenberger 
v.  Rector  &  Visitors  of  Univ.  of  Va.,  O.  T.  1994,  No.  94–329,  p. 2;  515 
U. S., at 824–825.  The Rosenberger dissenters agreed that the univer-
sity’s  policy  did  not  constitute  viewpoint  discrimination  because  “it
applie[d]  to  Muslim  and  Jewish  and  Buddhist  advocacy  as  well  as  to
Christian,” and it “applie[d] to agnostics and atheists as well as it does
to deists and theists.”  Id., at 895–896 (opinion of Souter, J.); cf. ante, at 
2–3  (opinion  of  STEVENS,  J.)  (asserting  that  under  Hastings’  Nondis-
crimination  Policy  “all  acts  of  religious  discrimination”  are  prohibited 
(emphasis  added)).    But  the  Court  flatly  rejected  this  argument.    See 
515  U.  S.,  at  831  (“Religion  may  be  a  vast  area  of  inquiry,  but  it  also
provides, as it did here, a specific premise, a perspective, a standpoint 
from which a variety of subjects may be discussed and considered”).