Source: http://www4.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/515/819
Timestamp: 2013-12-11 05:54:27
Document Index: 299302178

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 1979', '§ 57', '§ 4', '§ 1', '§ 5', '§ 10', '§ 6', '§ 2', '§ 1', '§ 21', '§ 1']

Ronald W. ROSENBERGER, et al., Petitioners v. RECTOR AND VISITORS OF the UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA et al. | Supreme Court | LII / Legal Information Institute
Supreme Court aboutsearch liibulletin subscribe previews Ronald W. ROSENBERGER, et al., Petitioners v. RECTOR AND VISITORS OF the UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA et al.
515 U.S. 819115 S.Ct. 2510132 L.Ed.2d 700 (515 U.S. 819115 S.Ct. 2510132 L.Ed.2d 700, 515 U.S. 819115 S.Ct. 2510132 L.Ed.2d 700)
Respondent University of Virginia, a state instrumentality, authorizes payments from its Student Activities Fund (SAF) to outside contractors for the printing costs of a variety of publications issued by student groups called "Contracted Independent Organizations" (CIOs). The SAF receives its money from mandatory student fees and is designed to support a broad range of extracurricular student activities related to the University's educational purpose. CIOs must include in their dealings with third parties and in all written materials a disclaimer stating that they are independent of the University and that the University is not responsible for them. The University withheld authorization for payments to a printer on behalf of petitioners' CIO, Wide Awake Productions (WAP), solely because its student newspaper, Wide Awake: A Christian Perspective at the University of Virginia, "primarily promotes or manifests a particular belief in or about a deity or an ultimate reality," as prohibited by the University's SAF Guidelines. Petitioners filed this suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging, inter alia, that the refusal to authorize payment violated their First Amendment right to freedom of speech. After the District Court granted summary judgment for the University, the Fourth Circuit affirmed, holding that the University's invocation of viewpoint discrimination to deny third-party payment violated the Speech Clause, but concluding that the discrimination was justified by the necessity of complying with the Establishment Clause.
Held: 1. The Guideline invoked to deny SAF support, both in its terms and in its application to these petitioners, is a denial of their right of free speech. Pp. ____.
(a) The Guideline violates the principles governing speech in limited public forums, which apply to the SAF under, e.g., Perry Ed. Assn. v. Perry Local Educators' Assn., 460 U.S. 37, 46-47, 103 S.Ct. 948, 955-956, 74 L.Ed.2d 794. In determining whether a State is acting within its power to preserve the limits it has set for such a forum so that the exclusion of a class of speech there is legitimate, see, e.g., id., at 49, 103 S.Ct., at 957, this Court has observed a distinction between, on the one hand, content discriminationi.e., discrimination against speech because of its subject matterwhich may be permissible if it preserves the limited forum's purposes, and, on the other hand, viewpoint discriminationi.e., discrimination because of the speaker's specific motivating ideology, opinion, or perspective which is presumed impermissible when directed against speech otherwise within the forum's limitations, see id., at 46, 103 S.Ct., at 955. The most recent and most apposite case in this area is Lamb's Chapel v. Center Moriches Union Free School Dist., 508 U.S. ----, ----, 113 S.Ct. 2141, 2147, 124 L.Ed.2d 352, in which the Court held that permitting school property to be used for the presentation of all views on an issue except those dealing with it from a religious standpoint constitutes prohibited viewpoint discrimination. Here, as in that case, the State's actions are properly interpreted as unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination rather than permissible line-drawing based on content: By the very terms of the SAF prohibition, the University does not exclude religion as a subject matter, but selects for disfavored treatment those student journalistic efforts with religious editorial viewpoints. Pp. ____.
(a) The governmental program at issue is neutral toward religion. Such neutrality is a significant factor in upholding programs in the face of Establishment Clause attack, and the guarantee of neutrality is not offended where, as here, the government follows neutral criteria and even-handed policies to extend benefits to recipients whose ideologies and viewpoints, including religious ones, are broad and diverse, Board of Ed. of Kiryas Joel v. Grumet, 512 U.S. ----, ----, 114 S.Ct. 2481, 2491-2492, 129 L.Ed.2d 546. There is no suggestion that the University created its program to advance religion or aid a religious cause. The SAF's purpose is to open a forum for speech and to support various student enterprises, including the publication of newspapers, in recognition of the diversity and creativity of student life. The SAF Guidelines have a separate classification for, and do not make third-party payments on behalf of, "religious organizations," and WAP did not seek a subsidy because of its Christian editorial viewpoint; it sought funding under the Guidelines as a "student . . . communications . . . group." Neutrality is also apparent in the fact that the University has taken pains to disassociate itself from the private speech involved in this case. The program's neutrality distinguishes the student fees here from a tax levied for the direct support of a church or group of churches, which would violate the Establishment Clause. Pp. ____.
Petitioners' organization, Wide Awake Productions (WAP), qualified as a CIO. Formed by petitioner Ronald Rosenberger and other undergraduates in 1990, WAP was established "to publish a magazine of philosophical and religious expression," "to facilitate discussion which fosters an atmosphere of sensitivity to and tolerance of Christian viewpoints," and "to provide a unifying focus for Christians of multicultural backgrounds." App. 67. WAP publishes Wide Awake: A Christian Perspective at the University of Virginia. The paper's Christian viewpoint was evident from the first issue, in which its editors wrote that the journal "offers a Christian perspective on both personal and community issues, especially those relevant to college students at the University of Virginia." App. 45. The editors committed the paper to a two-fold mission: "to challenge Christians to live, in word and deed, according to the faith they proclaim and to encourage students to consider what a personal relationship with Jesus Christ means." Ibid. The first issue had articles about racism, crisis pregnancy, stress, prayer, C.S. Lewis' ideas about evil and free will, and reviews of religious music. In the next two issues, Wide Awake featured stories about homosexuality, Christian missionary work, and eating disorders, as well as music reviews and interviews with University professors. Each page of Wide Awake, and the end of each article or review, is marked by a cross. The advertisements carried in Wide Awake also reveal the Christian perspective of the journal. For the most part, the advertisers are churches, centers for Christian study, or Christian bookstores. By June 1992, WAP had distributed about 5,000 copies of Wide Awake to University students, free of charge.
Having no further recourse within the University structure, WAP, Wide Awake, and three of its editors and members filed suit in the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia, challenging the SAF's action as violative of Rev.Stat. § 1979, 42 U.S.C. 1983. They alleged that refusal to authorize payment of the printing costs of the publication, solely on the basis of its religious editorial viewpoint, violated their rights to freedom of speech and press, to the free exercise of religion, and to equal protection of the law. They relied also upon Article I of the Virginia Constitution and the Virginia Act for Religious Freedom, Va.Code Ann. §§ 57-1, 57-2 (1986 and Supp.1994), but did not pursue those theories on appeal. The suit sought damages for the costs of printing the paper, injunctive and declaratory relief, and attorney's fees.
These principles provide the framework forbidding the State from exercising viewpoint discrimination, even when the limited public forum is one of its own creation. In a case involving a school district's provision of school facilities for private uses, we declared that "there is no question that the District, like the private owner of property, may legally preserve the property under its control for the use to which it is dedicated." Lamb's Chapel v. Center Moriches Union Free School Dist., 508 U.S. ----, ----, 113 S.Ct. 2141, 2146, 124 L.Ed.2d 352 (1993). The necessities of confining a forum to the limited and legitimate purposes for which it was created may justify the State in reserving it for certain groups or for the discussion of certain topics. See, e.g., Cornelius v. NAACP Legal Defense & Ed. Fund, Inc., 473 U.S. 788, 806, 105 S.Ct. 3439, 3451, 87 L.Ed.2d 567 (1985); Perry Ed. Assn., supra, at 49, 103 S.Ct., at 957. Once it has opened a limited forum, however, the State must respect the lawful boundaries it has itself set. The State may not exclude speech where its distinction is not "reasonable in light of the purpose served by the forum," Cornelius, supra, at 804-806, 105 S.Ct. at 3450-51; see also Perry Ed. Assn., supra, at 46, 49, 103 S.Ct., at 955, 957, nor may it discriminate against speech on the basis of its viewpoint, Lamb's Chapel, supra, at ----, 113 S.Ct., at 2147; see also Perry Ed. Assn., supra, at 46, 103 S.Ct., at 955; R.A.V., supra, at 386-388, 391-393, 112 S.Ct., at ---- - ----, ---- - ----; cf. Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397, 414-415, 109 S.Ct. 2533, 2545, 105 L.Ed.2d 342 (1989). Thus, in determining whether the State is acting to preserve the limits of the forum it has created so that the exclusion of a class of speech is legitimate, we have observed a distinction between, on the one hand, content discrimination, which may be permissible if it preserves the purposes of that limited forum, and, on the other hand, viewpoint discrimination, which is presumed impermissible when directed against speech otherwise within the forum's limitations. See Perry Ed. Assn., supra, at 46, 103 S.Ct., at 955.
The SAF is a forum more in a metaphysical than in a spatial or geographic sense, but the same principles are applicable. See, e.g., Perry Ed. Assn., supra, at 46-47, 103 S.Ct., at 955-956 (forum analysis of a school mail system); Cornelius, supra, at 801, 105 S.Ct., at 3448 (forum analysis of charitable contribution program). The most recent and most apposite case is our decision in Lamb's Chapel, supra. There, a school district had opened school facilities for use after school hours by community groups for a wide variety of social, civic, and recreational purposes. The district, however, had enacted a formal policy against opening facilities to groups for religious purposes. Invoking its policy, the district rejected a request from a group desiring to show a film series addressing various child-rearing questions from a "Christian perspective." There was no indication in the record in Lamb's Chapel that the request to use the school facilities was "denied for any reason other than the fact that the presentation would have been from a religious perspective." 508 U.S., at ---- - ----, 113 S.Ct., at 2145. Our conclusion was unanimous: "It discriminates on the basis of viewpoint to permit school property to be used for the presentation of all views about family issues and child-rearing except those dealing with the subject matter from a religious standpoint." Ibid.
It does not follow, however, and we did not suggest in Widmar, that viewpoint-based restrictions are proper when the University does not itself speak or subsidize transmittal of a message it favors but instead expends funds to encourage a diversity of views from private speakers. A holding that the University may not discriminate based on the viewpoint of private persons whose speech it facilitates does not restrict the University's own speech, which is controlled by different principles. See, e.g., Board of Ed. of Westside Community Schools (Dist. 66) v. Mergens, 496 U.S. 226, 250, 110 S.Ct. 2356, 2372, 110 L.Ed.2d 191 (1990); Hazelwood School Dist. v. Kuhlmeier, 484 U.S. 260, 270-272, 108 S.Ct. 562, 569-570, 98 L.Ed.2d 592 (1988). For that reason, the University's reliance on Regan v. Taxation with Representation of Wash., supra, is inapposite as well. Regan involved a challenge to Congress' choice to grant tax deductions for contributions made to veterans' groups engaged in lobbying, while denying that favorable status to other charities which pursued lobbying efforts. Although acknowledging that the Government is not required to subsidize the exercise of fundamental rights, see 461 U.S., at 545-546, 103 S.Ct., at 2001, we reaffirmed the requirement of viewpoint neutrality in the Government's provision of financial benefits by observing that "the case would be different if Congress were to discriminate invidiously in its subsidies in such a way as to 'aim at the suppression of dangerous ideas,' " see id., at 548, 103 S.Ct., at 2002 (quoting Cammarano v. United States, 358 U.S. 498, 513, 79 S.Ct. 524, 533, 3 L.Ed.2d 462 (1959), in turn quoting Speiser v. Randall, 357 U.S. 513, 519, 78 S.Ct. 1332, 1338, 2 L.Ed.2d 1460 (1958). Regan relied on a distinction based on preferential treatment of certain speakersveterans organizations and not a distinction based on the content or messages of those groups' speech. 461 U.S., at 548, 103 S.Ct., at 2002; cf. Perry Ed. Assn., 460 U.S., at 49, 103 S.Ct., at 957. The University's regulation now before us, however, has a speech-based restriction as its sole rationale and operative principle.
The Guideline invoked by the University to deny third-party contractor payments on behalf of WAP effects a sweeping restriction on student thought and student inquiry in the context of University sponsored publications. The prohibition on funding on behalf of publications that "primarily promote or manifest a particular belief in or about a deity or an ultimate reality," in its ordinary and commonsense meaning, has a vast potential reach. The term "promotes" as used here would comprehend any writing advocating a philosophic position that rests upon a belief in a deity or ultimate reality. See Webster's Third New International Dictionary 1815 (1961) (defining "promote" as "to contribute to the growth, enlargement, or prosperity of: further, encourage"). And the term "manifests" would bring within the scope of the prohibition any writing that is explicable as resting upon a premise which presupposes the existence of a deity or ultimate reality. See id., at 1375 (defining "manifest" as "to show plainly: make palpably evident or certain by showing or displaying"). Were the prohibition applied with much vigor at all, it would bar funding of essays by hypothetical student contributors named Plato, Spinoza, and Descartes. And if the regulation covers, as the University says it does, see Tr. of Oral Arg. 18-19, those student journalistic efforts which primarily manifest or promote a belief that there is no deity and no ultimate reality, then under-graduates named Karl Marx, Bertrand Russell, and Jean-Paul Sartre would likewise have some of their major essays excluded from student publications. If any manifestation of beliefs in first principles disqualifies the writing, as seems to be the case, it is indeed difficult to name renowned thinkers whose writings would be accepted, save perhaps for articles disclaiming all connection to their ultimate philosophy. Plato could contrive perhaps to submit an acceptable essay on making pasta or peanut butter cookies, provided he did not point out their (necessary) imperfections.
A central lesson of our decisions is that a significant factor in upholding governmental programs in the face of Establishment Clause attack is their neutrality towards religion. We have decided a series of cases addressing the receipt of government benefits where religion or religious views are implicated in some degree. The first case in our modern Establishment Clause jurisprudence was Everson v. Board of Ed. of Ewing, 330 U.S. 1, 67 S.Ct. 504, 91 L.Ed. 711 (1947). There we cautioned that in enforcing the prohibition against laws respecting establishment of religion, we must "be sure that we do not inadvertently prohibit the government from extending its general state law benefits to all its citizens without regard to their religious belief." Id., at 16, 67 S.Ct., at 512. We have held that the guarantee of neutrality is respected, not offended, when the government, following neutral criteria and evenhanded policies, extends benefits to recipients whose ideologies and viewpoints, including religious ones, are broad and diverse. See Board of Ed. of Kiryas Joel Village School Dist. v. Grumet, 512 U.S. ----, ----, 114 S.Ct. 2481, 2491, 129 L.Ed.2d 546 (1994) (SOUTER, J.) ("The principle is well grounded in our case law and we have frequently relied explicitly on the general availability of any benefit provided religious groups or individuals in turning aside Establishment Clause challenges"); Witters v. Washington Dept. of Services for Blind, 474 U.S. 481, 487-488, 106 S.Ct. 748, 751, 88 L.Ed.2d 846 (1986); Mueller v. Allen, 463 U.S. 388, 398-399, 103 S.Ct. 3062, 3069, 77 L.Ed.2d 721 (1983); Widmar, 454 U.S., at 274-275, 102 S.Ct., at 277. More than once have we rejected the position that the Establishment Clause even justifies, much less requires, a refusal to extend free speech rights to religious speakers who participate in broad-reaching government programs neutral in design. See Lamb's Chapel, 508 U.S., at ----, 113 S.Ct., at 2147-2148; Mergens, 496 U.S., at 248, 252, 110 S.Ct., at 2370-2371, 2373; Widmar, supra, at 274-275, 102 S.Ct., at 277.
Were the dissent's view to become law, it would require the University, in order to avoid a constitutional violation, to scrutinize the content of student speech, lest the expression in questionspeech otherwise protected by the Constitution contain too great a religious content. The dissent, in fact, anticipates such censorship as "crucial" in distinguishing between "works characterized by the evangelism of Wide Awake and writing that merely happens to express views that a given religion might approve." Post, at ____. That eventuality raises the specter of governmental censorship, to ensure that all student writings and publications meet some baseline standard of secular orthodoxy. To impose that standard on student speech at a university is to imperil the very sources of free speech and expression. As we recognized in Widmar, official censorship would be far more inconsistent with the Establishment Clause's dictates than would governmental provision of secular printing services on a religion-blind basis.
"The dissent fails to establish that the distinction between 'religious' speech and speech 'about' religion has intelligible content. There is no indication when 'singing hymns, reading scripture, and teaching biblical principles' cease to be 'singing, teaching, and reading'all apparently forms of 'speech,' despite their religious subject matterand become unprotected 'worship.' . . .
"Even if the distinction drew an arguably principled line, it is highly doubtful that it would lie within the judicial competence to administer. Merely to draw the distinction would require the universityand ultimately the courts to inquire into the significance of words and practices to different religious faiths, and in varying circumstances by the same faith. Such inquiries would tend inevitably to entangle the State with religion in a manner forbidden by our cases. E.g., Walz v. Tax Comm'n of New York City, 397 U.S. 664, 90 S.Ct. 1409, 25 L.Ed.2d 697 (1970) ." 454 U.S., at 269-270, n. 6, 102 S.Ct., at 274, n. 6 (citations omitted).
When two bedrock principles so conflict, understandably neither can provide the definitive answer. Reliance on categorical platitudes is unavailing. Resolution instead depends on the hard task of judgingsifting through the details and determining whether the challenged program offends the Establishment Clause. Such judgment requires courts to draw lines, sometimes quite fine, based on the particular facts of each case. See Lee v. Weisman, 505 U.S. 577, 598, 112 S.Ct. 2649, 2661, 120 L.Ed.2d 467 (1992) ("Our jurisprudence in this area is of necessity one of line-drawing"). As Justice Holmes observed in a different context: "Neither are we troubled by the question where to draw the line. That is the question in pretty much everything worth arguing in the law. Day and night, youth and age are only types." Irwin v. Gavit, 268 U.S. 161, 168, 45 S.Ct. 475, 476, 69 L.Ed. 897 (1925) (citation omitted).
The need for careful judgment and fine distinctions presents itself even in extreme cases. Everson v. Board of Ed. of Ewing, 330 U.S. 1, 67 S.Ct. 504, 91 L.Ed. 711 (1947), provided perhaps the strongest exposition of the no-funding principle: "No tax in any amount, large or small, can be levied to support any religious activities or institutions, whatever they may be called, or whatever form they may adopt to teach or practice religion." Id., at 16, 67 S.Ct., at 512. Yet the Court approved the use of public funds, in a general program, to reimburse parents for their children's bus fares to attend Catholic schools. Id., at 17-18, 67 S.Ct., at 512-513. Although some would cynically dismiss the Court's disposition as inconsistent with its protestations, see id., at 19, 67 S.Ct., at 513 (Jackson, J., dissenting) ("the most fitting precedent is that of Julia who, according to Byron's reports, 'whispering "I will ne'er consent," consented' "), the decision reflected the need to rely on careful judgmentnot simple categories when two principles, of equal historical and jurisprudential pedigree, come into unavoidable conflict.
First, the student organizations, at the University's insistence, remain strictly independent of the University. The University's agreement with the Contracted Independent Organizations (CIO)i.e., student groups provides:
The Court's decision today therefore neither trumpets the supremacy of the neutrality principle nor signals the demise of the funding prohibition in Establishment Clause jurisprudence. As I observed last Term, "experience proves that the Establishment Clause, like the Free Speech Clause, cannot easily be reduced to a single test." Kiryas Joel, 512 U.S., at ----, 114 S.Ct., at 2499 (O'CONNOR, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). When bedrock principles collide, they test the limits of categorical obstinacy and expose the flaws and dangers of a Grand Unified Theory that may turn out to be neither grand nor unified. The Court today does only what courts must do in many Establishment Clause casesfocus on specific features of a particular government action to ensure that it does not violate the Constitution. By withholding from Wide Awake assistance that the University provides generally to all other student publications, the University has discriminated on the basis of the magazine's religious viewpoint in violation of the Free Speech Clause. And particular features of the University's programsuch as the explicit disclaimer, the disbursement of funds directly to third-party vendors, the vigorous nature of the forum at issue, and the possibility for objecting students to opt outconvince me that providing such assistance in this case would not carry the danger of impermissible use of public funds to endorse Wide Awake's religious message.
Even assuming that the Virginia debate on the so-called "Assessment Controversy" was indicative of the principles embodied in the Establishment Clause, this incident hardly compels the dissent's conclusion that government must actively discriminate against religion. The dissent's historical discussion glosses over the fundamental characteristic of the Virginia assessment bill that sparked the controversy: The assessment was to be imposed for the support of clergy in the performance of their function of teaching religion. Thus, the "Bill Establishing a Provision for Teachers of the Christian Religion" provided for the collection of a specific tax, the proceeds of which were to be appropriated "by the Vestries, Elders, or Directors of each religious society . . . to a provision for a Minister or Teacher of the Gospel of their denomination, or the providing places of divine worship, and to none other use whatsoever." See Everson v. Board of Ed. of Ewing, 330 U.S. 1, 74, 67 S.Ct. 504, 539, 91 L.Ed. 711 (1947) (appendix to dissent of Rutledge, J.).
James Madison's Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments (hereinafter Madison's Remonstrance) must be understood in this context. Contrary to the dissent's suggestion, Madison's objection to the assessment bill did not rest on the premise that religious entities may never participate on equal terms in neutral government programs. Nor did Madison embrace the argument that forms the linchpin of the dissent: that monetary subsidies are constitutionally different from other neutral benefits programs. Instead, Madison's comments are more consistent with the neutrality principle that the dissent inexplicably discards. According to Madison, the Virginia assessment was flawed because it "violated that equality which ought to be the basis of every law." Madison's Remonstrance ¶ 4, reprinted in Everson, supra, at 66, 67 S.Ct., at 536 (appendix to dissent of Rutledge, J.). The assessment violated the "equality" principle not because it allowed religious groups to participate in a generally available government program, but because the bill singled out religious entities for special benefits. See ibid. (arguing that the assessment violated the equality principle "by subjecting some to peculiar burdens" and "by granting to others peculiar exemptions").
In addition to the third and fourth paragraphs of the Remonstrance, "Madison's seventh, ninth, eleventh, and twelfth arguments all speak, in some way, to the same intolerance, bigotry, unenlightenment, and persecution that had generally resulted from previous exclusive religious establishments." Cord, supra, at 21. The conclusion that Madison saw the principle of nonestablishment as barring governmental preferences for particular religious faiths seems especially clear in light of statements he made in the more-relevant context of the House debates on the First Amendment. See Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U.S. 38, 98, 105 S.Ct. 2479, 2511, 86 L.Ed.2d 29 (1985) (REHNQUIST, J., dissenting) (Madison's views "as reflected by actions on the floor of the House in 1789, indicate that he saw the First Amendment as designed to prohibit the establishment of a national religion, and perhaps to prevent discrimination among sects," but not "as requiring neutrality on the part of government between religion and irreligion"). Moreover, even if more extreme notions of the separation of church and state can be attributed to Madison, many of them clearly stem from "arguments reflecting the concepts of natural law, natural rights, and the social contract between government and a civil society," Cord, supra, at 22, rather than the principle of nonestablishment in the Constitution. In any event, the views of one man do not establish the original understanding of the First Amendment.
But resolution of this debate is not necessary to decide this case. Under any understanding of the Assessment Controversy, the history cited by the dissent cannot support the conclusion that the Establishment Clause "categorically condemns state programs directly aiding religious activity" when that aid is part of a neutral program available to a wide array of beneficiaries. Post, at ____. Even if Madison believed that the principle of nonestablishment of religion precluded government financial support for religion per se (in the sense of government benefits specifically targeting religion), there is no indication that at the time of the framing he took the dissent's extreme view that the government must discriminate against religious adherents by excluding them from more generally available financial subsidies.
In fact, Madison's own early legislative proposals cut against the dissent's suggestion. In 1776, when Virginia's Revolutionary Convention was drafting its Declaration of Rights, Madison prepared an amendment that would have disestablished the Anglican Church. This amendment (which went too far for the Convention and was not adopted) is not nearly as sweeping as the dissent's version of disestablishment; Madison merely wanted the Convention to declare that "no man or class of men ought, on account of religion, to be invested with peculiar emoluments or privileges. . . ." Madison's Amendments to the Declaration of Rights (May 29-June 12, 1776), in 1 Papers of James Madison 174 (W. Hutchinson & W. Rachal eds. 1962) (emphasis added). Likewise, Madison's Remonstrance stressed that "just government" is "best supported by protecting every citizen in the enjoyment of his Religion with the same equal hand which protects his person and his property; by neither invading the equal rights of any Sect, nor suffering any Sect to invade those of another." Madison's Remonstrance ¶ 8, reprinted in Everson, supra, at 68, 67 S.Ct., at 537; cf. Terrett v. Taylor, 9 Cranch 43, 49, 3 L.Ed. 650 (1815) (holding that the Virginia constitution did not prevent the government from "aiding the votaries of every sect to . . . perform their own religious duties," or from "establishing funds for the support of ministers, for public charities, for the endowment of churches, or for the sepulture of the dead").
Stripped of its flawed historical premise, the dissent's argument is reduced to the claim that our Establishment Clause jurisprudence permits neutrality in the context of access to government facilities but requires discrimination in access to government funds. The dissent purports to locate the prohibition against "direct public funding" at the "heart" of the Establishment Clause, see post, at ____, but this conclusion fails to confront historical examples of funding that date back to the time of the founding. To take but one famous example, both Houses of the First Congress elected chaplains, see S. Jour., 1st Cong., 1st Sess., 10 (1820 ed.); H.R. Jour., 1st Cong., 1st Sess., 26 (1826 ed.), and that Congress enacted legislation providing for an annual salary of $500 to be paid out of the Treasury, see Act of Sept. 22, 1789, ch. 17, § 4, 1 Stat. 70, 71. Madison himself was a member of the committee that recommended the chaplain system in the House. See H.R. Jour., at 11-12; 1 Annals of Cong. 891 (1789); Cord, supra, at 25. This same system of "direct public funding" of congressional chaplains has "continued without interruption ever since that early session of Congress." Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U.S. 783, 788, 103 S.Ct. 3330, 3334, 77 L.Ed.2d 1019 (1983).
The historical evidence of government support for religious entities through property tax exemptions is also overwhelming. As the dissent concedes, property tax exemptions for religious bodies "have been in place for over 200 years without disruption to the interests represented by the Establishment Clause." Post, at ____, n. 7 (citing Walz v. Tax Comm'n of New York City, 397 U.S. 664, 676-680, 90 S.Ct. 1409, 1415-1417, 25 L.Ed.2d 697 (1970)).
In one instance, the government relieves religious entities (along with others) of a generally applicable tax; in the other, it relieves religious entities (along with others) of some or all of the burden of that tax by returning it in the form of a cash subsidy. Whether the benefit is provided at the front or back end of the taxation process, the financial aid to religious groups is undeniable. The analysis under the Establishment Clause must also be the same: "Few concepts are more deeply embedded in the fabric of our national life, beginning with pre-Revolutionary colonial times, than for the government to exercise at the very least this kind of benevolent neutrality toward churches and religious exercise. . . ." Walz, supra, at 676-677, 90 S.Ct., at 1415.
Consistent application of the dissent's "no-aid" principle would require that " 'a church could not be protected by the police and fire departments, or have its public sidewalk kept in repair.' " Zobrest v. Catalina Foothills School Dist., 509 U.S. ----, ----, 113 S.Ct. 2462, 2466, 125 L.Ed.2d 1 (1993) (quoting Widmar v. Vincent, 454 U.S. 263, 274-275, 102 S.Ct. 269, 277, 70 L.Ed.2d 440 (1981)). The dissent admits that "evenhandedness may become important to ensuring that religious interests are not inhibited." Post, at ____, n. 5. Surely the dissent must concede, however, that the same result should obtain whether the government provides the populace with fire protection by reimbursing the costs of smoke detectors and overhead sprinkler systems or by establishing a public fire department. If churches may benefit on equal terms with other groups in the latter program that is, if a public fire department may extinguish fires at churchesthen they may also benefit on equal terms in the former program.
Our Nation's tradition of allowing religious adherents to participate in evenhanded government programs is hardly limited to the class of "essential public benefits" identified by the dissent. See post, at ____, n. 5. A broader tradition can be traced at least as far back as the First Congress, which ratified the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. See Act of Aug. 7, 1789, ch. 8, 1 Stat. 50. Article III of that famous enactment of the Confederation Congress had provided: "Religion, morality, and knowledge . . . being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of learning shall forever be encouraged." Id., at 52, n. (a). Congress subsequently set aside federal lands in the Northwest Territory and other territories for the use of schools. See, e.g., Act of Mar. 3, 1803, ch. 21, § 1, 2 Stat. 225-226; Act of Mar. 26, 1804, ch. 35, § 5, 2 Stat. 279; Act of Feb. 15, 1811, ch. 14, § 10, 2 Stat. 621; Act of Apr. 18, 1818, ch. 67, § 6, 3 Stat. 430; Act of Apr. 20, 1818, ch. 126, § 2, 3 Stat. 467. Many of the schools that enjoyed the benefits of these land grants undoubtedly were church-affiliated sectarian institutions as there was no requirement that the schools be "public." See C. Antieau, A. Downey, & E. Roberts, Freedom From Federal Establishment, Formation and Early History of the First Amendment Religion Clauses 163 (1964). Nevertheless, early Congresses found no problem with the provision of such neutral benefits. See also id., at 174 (noting that "almost universally, Americans from 1789 to 1825 accepted and practiced governmental aid to religion and religiously oriented educational institutions").
Numerous other government benefits traditionally have been available to religious adherents on neutral terms. Several examples may be found in the work of early Congresses, including copyright protection for "the author and authors of any map, chart, book or books," Act of May 31, 1790, ch. 15, § 1, 1 Stat. 124, 124, and a privilege allowing "every printer of newspapers to send one paper to each and every other printer of newspapers within the United States, free of postage," Act of Feb. 20, 1792, ch. 7, § 21, 1 Stat. 232, 238. Neither of these laws made any exclusion for the numerous authors or printers who manifested a belief in or about a deity.
This writing is no merely descriptive examination of religious doctrine or even of ideal Christian practice in confronting life's social and personal problems. Nor is it merely the expression of editorial opinion that incidentally coincides with Christian ethics and reflects a Christian view of human obligation. It is straightforward exhortation to enter into a relationship with God as revealed in Jesus Christ, and to satisfy a series of moral obligations derived from the teachings of Jesus Christ. These are not the words of "student news, information, opinion, entertainment, or academic communication . . ." (in the language of the University's funding criterion, App. to Pet. for Cert. 61a), but the words of "challenge to Christians to live, in word and deed, according to the faith they proclaim and . . . to consider what a personal relationship with Jesus Christ means" (in the language of Wide Awake's founder, App. 45). The subject is not the discourse of the scholar's study or the seminar room, but of the evangelist's mission station and the pulpit. It is nothing other than the preaching of the word, which (along with the sacraments) is what most branches of Christianity offer those called to the religious life.
"Who does not see that . . . the same authority which can force a citizen to contribute three pence only of his property for the support of any one establishment, may force him to conform to any other establishment in all cases whatsoever?" James Madison, Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments ¶ 3 (hereinafter Madison's Remonstrance), reprinted in Everson, supra, at 65-66 67 S.Ct., at 524 (appendix to dissent of Rutledge, J.).
Madison wrote against a background in which nearly every Colony had exacted a tax for church support, Everson, supra, at 10, n. 8, 67 S.Ct., at 509, n. 8, the practice having become "so commonplace as to shock the freedom-loving colonials into a feeling of abhorrence," 330 U.S., at 11, 67 S.Ct., at 509 (footnote omitted). Madison's Remonstrance captured the colonists' "conviction that individual religious liberty could be achieved best under a government which was stripped of all power to tax, to support, or otherwise to assist any or all religions, or to interfere with the beliefs of any religious individual or group." Ibid.
Their sentiment as expressed by Madison in Virginia, led not only to the defeat of Virginia's tax assessment bill, but also directly to passage of the Virginia Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom, written by Thomas Jefferson. That bill's preamble declared that "to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves, is sinful and tyrannical," Jefferson, A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom, reprinted in 5 The Founder's Constitution 84-85 (P. Kurland & R. Lerner eds. 1987), and its text provided "that no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever. . . .," ibid. See generally Everson, supra, at 13, 67 S.Ct., at 510. We have "previously recognized that the provisions of the First Amendment, in the drafting and adoption of which Madison and Jefferson played such leading roles, had the same objective and were intended to provide the same protection against governmental intrusion on religious liberty as the Virginia statute." Ibid.; see also Laycock, "Nonpreferential" Aid to Religion: A False Claim About Original Intent, 27 Wm. & Mary L.Rev. 875, 921, 923 (1986) ("If the debates of the 1780's support any proposition, it is that the Framers opposed government financial support for religion. . . . They did not substitute small taxes for large taxes; three pence was as bad as any larger sum. The principle was what mattered. With respect to money, religion was to be wholly voluntary. Churches either would support themselves or they would not, but the government would neither help nor interfere") (footnote omitted); T. Curry, The First Freedoms 217 (1986) (At the time of the framing of the Bill of Rights, "the belief that government assistance to religion, especially in the form of taxes, violated religious liberty had a long history"); J. Choper, Securing Religious Liberty 16 (1995) ("There is broad consensus that a central threat to the religious freedom of individuals and groupsindeed, in the judgment of many the most serious infringement upon religious libertyis posed by forcing them to pay taxes in support of a religious establishment or religious activities") (footnotes omitted; internal quotation marks omitted).
Like today's taxes generally, the fee is Madison's threepence. The University exercises the power of the State to compel a student to pay it, see Jefferson's Preamble, supra, and the use of any part of it for the direct support of religious activity thus strikes at what we have repeatedly held to be the heart of the prohibition on establishment. Everson, 330 U.S., at 15-16, 67 S.Ct., at 511 ("The 'establishment of religion clause' . . . means at least this. . . . No tax in any amount, large or small, can be levied to support any religious activities or institutions, whatever they may be called, or whatever form they may adopt to teach or practice religion"); see School Dist. of Grand Rapids v. Ball, 473 U.S. 373, 385, 105 S.Ct. 3216, 3223, 87 L.Ed.2d 267 (1985) ("Although Establishment Clause jurisprudence is characterized by few absolutes, the Clause does absolutely prohibit government-financed or government-sponsored indoctrination into the beliefs of a particular religious faith"); Committee for Public Education v. Nyquist, 413 U.S., at 780, 93 S.Ct., at 2968 ("In the absence of an effective means of guaranteeing that the state aid derived from public funds will be used exclusively for secular, neutral, and nonideological purposes, it is clear from our cases that direct aid in whatever form is invalid"); id., at 772, 93 S.Ct., at 2969 ("Primary among those evils" against which the Establishment Clause guards "have been sponsorship, financial support, and active involvement of the sovereign in religious activity") (citations and internal quotation marks omitted); see also Lee v. Weisman, 505 U.S. 577, 640, 112 S.Ct. 2649, ----, 120 L.Ed.2d 467 (1992) (SCALIA, J., dissenting) ("The coercion that was a hallmark of historical establishments of religion was coercion of religious orthodoxy and of financial support by force of law and threat of penalty") (emphasis omitted); cf. Flast v. Cohen, 392 U.S. 83, 103-104, 88 S.Ct. 1942, 1954-1955, 20 L.Ed.2d 947 (1968) (holding that taxpayers have an adequate stake in the outcome of Establishment Clause litigation to satisfy Article III standing requirements, after stating that "our history vividly illustrates that one of the specific evils feared by those who drafted the Establishment Clause and fought for its adoption was that the taxing and spending power would be used to favor one religion over another or to support religion in general").
The Court, accordingly, has never before upheld direct state funding of the sort of proselytizing published in Wide Awake and, in fact, has categorically condemned state programs directly aiding religious activity, School Dist. v. Ball, supra, at 395, 105 S.Ct., at 3228-3229 (striking programs providing secular instruction to nonpublic school students on nonpublic school premises because they are "indistinguishable from the provision of a direct cash subsidy to the religious school that is most clearly prohibited under the Establishment Clause"); Wolman v. Walter, 433 U.S. 229, 254, 97 S.Ct. 2593, 2608-2609, 53 L.Ed.2d 714 (1977) (striking field trip aid program because it constituted "an impermissible direct aid to sectarian education"); Meek v. Pittenger, 421 U.S. 349, 365, 95 S.Ct. 1753, 1763, 44 L.Ed.2d 217 (1975) (striking material and equipment loan program to nonpublic schools because of the inability to "channel aid to the secular without providing direct aid to the sectarian"); Committee for Public Education v. Nyquist, supra, at 774, 93 S.Ct., at 2966 (striking aid to nonpublic schools for maintenance and repair of facilities because "no attempt is made to restrict payments to those expenditures related to the upkeep of facilities used exclusively for secular purposes"); Levitt v. Committee for Public Ed. & Religious Liberty, 413 U.S. 472, 480, 93 S.Ct. 2814, 2819, 37 L.Ed.2d 736 (1973) (striking aid to nonpublic schools for state-mandated tests because the state had failed to "assure that the state-supported activity is not being used for religious indoctrination"); Tilton v. Richardson, 403 U.S. 672, 683, 91 S.Ct. 2091, 2098, 29 L.Ed.2d 790 (1971) (plurality opinion) (striking as insufficient a 20-year limit on prohibition for religious use in federal construction program for university facilities because unrestricted use even after 20 years "is in effect a contribution of some value to a religious body"); id., at 689, 91 S.Ct., at 2101 (Douglas, Black, and Marshall, JJ., concurring in part and dissenting in part).
Even when the Court has upheld aid to an institution performing both secular and sectarian functions, it has always made a searching enquiry to ensure that the institution kept the secular activities separate from its sectarian ones, with any direct aid flowing only to the former and never the latter. Bowen v. Kendrick, 487 U.S. 589, 614-615, 108 S.Ct. 2562, 2577, 101 L.Ed.2d 520 (1988) (upholding grant program for services related to premarital adolescent sexual relations on ground that funds cannot be "used by the grantees in such a way as to advance religion"); Roemer v. Board of Pub. Works of Md., 426 U.S. 736, 746-748, 755, 759-761, 96 S.Ct. 2337, 2344-2346, 2349, 2351-2352, 49 L.Ed.2d 179 (1976) (plurality opinion) (upholding general aid program restricting uses of funds to secular activities only); Hunt v. McNair, 413 U.S. 734, 742-745, 93 S.Ct. 2868, 2873-2875, 37 L.Ed.2d 923 (1973) (upholding general revenue bond program excluding from participation facilities used for religious purposes); Tilton v. Richardson, supra, at 679-682, 91 S.Ct., at 2096-2098 (plurality opinion) (upholding general aid program for construction of academic facilities as "there is no evidence that religion seeps into the use of any of these facilities"); see Board of Ed. of Central School Dist. No. 1 v. Allen, 392 U.S. 236, 244-248, 88 S.Ct. 1923, 1926-1929, 20 L.Ed.2d 1060 (1968) (upholding textbook loan program limited to secular books requested by individual students for secular educational purposes).
Why does the Court not apply this clear law to these clear facts and conclude, as I do, that the funding scheme here is a clear constitutional violation? The answer must be in part that the Court fails to confront the evidence set out in the preceding section. Throughout its opinion, the Court refers uninformatively to Wide Awake's "Christian viewpoint," ante, at ____, or its "religious perspective," ante, at ____, and in distinguishing funding of Wide Awake from the funding of a church, the Court maintains that "Wide Awake is not a religious institution, at least in the usual sense," ante, at ____;
see also ante, at ____. The Court does not quote the magazine's adoption of Saint Paul's exhortation to awaken to the nearness of salvation, or any of its articles enjoining readers to accept Jesus Christ, or the religious verses, or the religious textual analyses, or the suggested prayers. And so it is easy for the Court to lose sight of what the University students and the Court of Appeals found so obvious, and to blanch the patently and frankly evangelistic character of the magazine by unrevealing allusions to religious points of view.
Nevertheless, even without the encumbrance of detail from Wide Awake's actual pages, the Court finds something sufficiently religious about the magazine to require examination under the Establishment Clause, and one may therefore ask why the unequivocal prohibition on direct funding does not lead the Court to conclude that funding would be unconstitutional. The answer is that the Court focuses on a subsidiary body of law, which it correctly states but ultimately misapplies. That subsidiary body of law accounts for the Court's substantial attention to the fact that the University's funding scheme is "neutral," in the formal sense that it makes funds available on an evenhanded basis to secular and sectarian applicants alike. Ante, at ____. While this is indeed true and relevant under our cases, it does not alone satisfy the requirements of the Establishment Clause, as the Court recognizes when it says that evenhandedness is only a "significant factor" in certain Establishment Clause analysis, not a dispositive one. Ante, at ____; see ante, at ____; see also ante, at ____ (O'CONNOR, J., concurring); id., at ____ ("Neutrality, in both form and effect, is one hallmark of the Establishment Clause"); Capitol Square Review and Advisory Board v. Pinette, --- U.S. ----, ----, 115 S.Ct. 2440, ----, --- L.Ed.2d ---- (O'CONNOR, J., concurring in part and concurring in the judgment) ("the Establishment Clause forbids a State from hiding behind the application of formally neutral criteria and remaining studiously oblivious to the effects of its actions. . . . Not all State policies are permissible under the Religion Clauses simply because they are neutral in form"). This recognition reflects the Court's appreciation of two general rules: that whenever affirmative government aid ultimately benefits religion, the Establishment Clause requires some justification beyond evenhandedness on the government's part; and that direct public funding of core sectarian activities, even if accomplished pursuant to an evenhanded program, would be entirely inconsistent with the Establishment Clause and would strike at the very heart of the Clause's protection. See ante, at ____ ("We do not confront a case where, even under a neutral program that includes nonsectarian recipients, the government is making direct money payments to an institution or group that is engaged in religious activity"); ante, at ____; see also ante, at ---- (O'CONNOR, J., concurring) ("Our decisions . . . provide no precedent for the use of public funds to finance religious activities").
In order to understand how the Court thus begins with sound rules but ends with an unsound result, it is necessary to explore those rules in greater detail than the Court does. As the foregoing quotations from the Court's opinion indicate, the relationship between the prohibition on direct aid and the requirement of evenhandedness when affirmative government aid does result in some benefit to religion reflects the relationship between basic rule and marginal criterion. At the heart of the Establishment Clause stands the prohibition against direct public funding, but that prohibition does not answer the questions that occur at the margins of the Clause's application. Is any government activity that provides any incidental benefit to religion likewise unconstitutional? Would it be wrong to put out fires in burning churches, wrong to pay the bus fares of students on the way to parochial schools, wrong to allow a grantee of special education funds to spend them at a religious college? These are the questions that call for drawing lines, and it is in drawing them that evenhandedness becomes important. However the Court may in the past have phrased its line-drawing test, the question whether such benefits are provided on an evenhanded basis has been relevant, for the question addresses one aspect of the issue whether a law is truly neutral with respect to religion (that is, whether the law either "advances or inhibits religion," Allegheny County v. Greater Pittsburgh Chapter, American Civil Liberties Union, 492 U.S. 573, 592, 109 S.Ct. 3086, 3100, 106 L.Ed.2d 472 (1989)). In Widmar v. Vincent, 454 U.S. 263, 274, 102 S.Ct. 269, 276, 70 L.Ed.2d 440 (1981), for example, we noted that "the provision of benefits to a broad . . . spectrum of religious and nonreligious groups is an important index of secular effect." See also Board of Ed. of Kiryas Joel Village School Dist. v. Grumet, 512 U.S. ----, ----, 114 S.Ct. 2481, 2491-2492, 129 L.Ed.2d 546 (1994). In the doubtful cases (those not involving direct public funding), where there is initially room for argument about a law's effect, evenhandedness serves to weed out those laws that impermissibly advance religion by channelling aid to it exclusively. Evenhandedness is therefore a prerequisite to further enquiry into the constitutionality of a doubtful law,
Three cases permitting indirect aid to religion, Mueller v. Allen, 463 U.S. 388, 103 S.Ct. 3062, 77 L.Ed.2d 721 (1983), Witters v. Washington Dept. of Services for Blind, 474 U.S. 481, 106 S.Ct. 748, 88 L.Ed.2d 846 (1986), and Zobrest v. Catalina Foothills School Dist., 509 U.S. 1, 113 S.Ct. 2462, 125 L.Ed.2d 1 (1993), are among the latest of those to illustrate this relevance of evenhandedness when advancement is not so obvious as to be patently unconstitutional. Each case involved a program in which benefits given to individuals on a religion-neutral basis ultimately were used by the individuals, in one way or another, to support religious institutions.
In each, the fact that aid was distributed generally and on a neutral basis was a necessary condition for upholding the program at issue. Witters, supra, at 487-488, 106 S.Ct., at 751; Mueller, supra, at 397-399, 103 S.Ct. at 3068-3069; Zobrest, supra, at ---- - ----, 113 S.Ct., at 2467-2468. But the significance of evenhandedness stopped there. We did not, in any of these cases, hold that satisfying the condition was sufficient, or dispositive. Even more importantly, we never held that evenhandedness might be sufficient to render direct aid to religion constitutional. Quite the contrary. Critical to our decisions in these cases was the fact that the aid was indirect; it reached religious institutions "only as a result of the genuinely independent and private choices of aid recipients," Witters, supra, at 487, 106 S.Ct., at 752; see also Mueller, supra, at 399-400, 103 S.Ct., at 3069-3070; Zobrest, supra, at ---- - ----, 113 S.Ct., at 2468-2469. In noting and relying on this particular feature of each of the programs at issue, we in fact reaffirmed the core prohibition on direct funding of religious activities. See Zobrest, supra, at ---- - ----, 113 S.Ct., at 2468-2469; Witters, supra, at 487, 106 S.Ct., at 752; see also Mueller, supra, at 399-400, 103 S.Ct., at 3069-3070. Thus, our holdings in these cases were little more than extensions of the unremarkable proposition that "a State may issue a paycheck to one of its employees, who may then donate all or part of that paycheck to a religious institution, all without constitutional barrier. . . ." Witters, supra, at 486-487, 106 S.Ct., at 751. Such "attenuated financial benefits, ultimately controlled by the private choices of individuals," we have found, are simply not within the contemplation of the Establishment Clause's broad prohibition. Mueller, supra, at 400, 103 S.Ct., at 3069-3070; see also Witters, supra, at 493, 106 S.Ct., at 754-755 (opinion of O'CONNOR, J.).
Evenhandedness as one element of a permissibly attenuated benefit is, of course, a far cry from evenhandedness as a sufficient condition of constitutionality for direct financial support of religious proselytization, and our cases have unsurprisingly repudiated any such attempt to cut the Establishment Clause down to a mere prohibition against unequal direct aid. See, e.g., Tilton v. Richardson, 403 U.S., at 682-684, 91 S.Ct., at 2097-2099 (striking portion of general aid program providing grants for construction of college and university facilities to the extent program made possible the use of funds for sectarian activities);
Wolman v. Walter, 433 U.S., at 252-255, 97 S.Ct., at 2608-09 (striking funding of field trips for nonpublic school students, such as are "provided to public school students in the district," because of unacceptable danger that state funds would be used to foster religion). And nowhere has the Court's adherence to the preeminence of the no-direct-funding principle over the principle of evenhandedness been as clear as in Bowen v. Kendrick, 487 U.S. 589, 108 S.Ct. 2562, 101 L.Ed.2d 520.
With respect to the claim that the program was unconstitutional as applied, we remanded the case to the District Court "for consideration of the evidence presented by appellees insofar as it sheds light on the manner in which the statute is presently being administered." Id., at 621, 108 S.Ct., at 2580. Specifically, we told the District Court, on remand, to "consider . . . whether in particular cases AFLA aid has been used to fund 'specifically religious activities in an otherwise substantially secular setting.' " Ibid., quoting Hunt v. McNair, 413 U.S., at 743, 93 S.Ct., at 2874. In giving additional guidance to the District Court, we suggested that application of the Act would be unconstitutional if it turned out that aid recipients were using materials "that have an explicitly religious content or are designed to inculcate the views of a particular religious faith." Ibid. At no point in our opinion did we suggest that the breadth of potential recipients, or distribution on an evenhanded basis, could have justified the use of federal funds for religious activities, a position that would have made no sense after we had pegged the Act's facial constitutionality to our conclusion that advancement of religion was not inevitable. Justice O'CONNOR's separate opinion in the case underscored just this point: "I fully agree . . . that 'public funds may not be used to endorse the religious message.' Post, at __, 108 S.Ct., at 2591-2592 (Blackmun, J., dissenting) . . . . Any use of public funds to promote religious doctrines violates the Establishment Clause." Id., at 622-623, 108 S.Ct., at 2581-582 (concurring opinion) (emphasis in original).
Witters, Mueller, and Zobrest expressly preserve the standard thus exhibited so often. Each of these cases explicitly distinguished the indirect aid in issue from contrasting examples in the line of cases striking down direct aid, and each thereby expressly preserved the core constitutional principle that direct aid to religion is impermissible. See Zobrest, supra, at ---- - ----, 113 S.Ct., at 2468-2469 (distinguishing Meek v. Pittenger, 421 U.S. 349, 95 S.Ct. 1753, 44 L.Ed.2d 217 and School Dist. v. Ball, 473 U.S. 373, 105 S.Ct. 3216, 87 L.Ed.2d 267, and noting that " 'the state may not grant aid to a religious school, whether cash or in kind, where the effect of the aid is that of a direct subsidy to the religious school' ") (quoting Witters, 474 U.S., at 487, 106 S.Ct., at 751); see also ibid.; Mueller, 463 U.S., at 399, 103 S.Ct., at 3069. It appears that the University perfectly understood the primacy of the no-direct-funding rule over the evenhandedness principle when it drew the line short of funding "any activity which primarily promotes or manifests a particular belief(s) in or about a deity or an ultimate reality."
App. to Pet. for Cert. 66a.
* If the Court's suggestion is that this feature of the funding program brings this case into line with Witters, Mueller, and Zobrest (discussed supra, at ____), the Court has misread those cases, which turned on the fact that the choice to benefit religion was made by a non-religious third party standing between the government and a religious institution. See Witters, 474 U.S., at 487, 106 S.Ct., at 751; see also Mueller, 463 U.S., at 399-400, 103 S.Ct., at 3069-3070; Zobrest, 509 U.S., at ---- - ----, 113 S.Ct., at 2467-2469. Here there is no third party standing between the government and the ultimate religious beneficiary to break the circuit by its independent discretion to put state money to religious use. The printer, of course, has no option to take the money and use it to print a secular journal instead of Wide Awake. It only gets the money because of its contract to print a message of religious evangelism at the direction of Wide Awake, and it will receive payment only for doing precisely that. The formalism of distinguishing between payment to Wide Awake so it can pay an approved bill and payment of the approved bill itself cannot be the basis of a decision of Constitutional law. If this indeed were a critical distinction, the Constitution would permit a State to pay all the bills of any religious institution;
Although it was a taxation scheme that moved Madison to write in the first instance, the Court has never held that government resources obtained without taxation could be used for direct religious support, and our cases on direct government aid have frequently spoken in terms in no way limited to tax revenues. E.g., School Dist. v. Ball, 473 U.S., at 385, 105 S.Ct., at 3223 ("Although Establishment Clause jurisprudence is characterized by few absolutes, the Clause does absolutely prohibit government-financed or government-sponsored indoctrination into the beliefs of a particular religious faith"); Nyquist, 413 U.S., at 780, 93 S.Ct., at 2969 ("In the absence of an effective means of guaranteeing that the state aid derived from public funds will be used exclusively for secular, neutral, and nonideological purposes, it is clear from our cases that direct aid in whatever form is invalid"); id., at 772, 93 S.Ct., at 2965 ("Primary among those evils" against which the Establishment Clause guards "have been sponsorship, financial support, and active involvement of the sovereign in religious activity") (citations and internal quotation marks omitted); see also T. Curry, The First Freedoms 217 (1986) (At the time of the framing of the Bill of Rights, "the belief that government assistance to religion, especially in the form of taxes, violated religious liberty had a long history").
The Court acknowledges, ante, at ____, the necessity for a university to make judgments based on the content of what may be said or taught when it decides, in the absence of unlimited amounts of money or other resources, how to honor its educational responsibilities. Widmar, supra, at 276, 102 S.Ct., at 277-278; cf. Perry, 460 U.S., at 49, 103 S.Ct., at 957 (subject matter and speaker identity distinctions "are inherent and inescapable in the process of limiting a non-public forum to activities compatible with the intended purpose of the property"). Nor does the Court generally question that in allocating public funds a state university enjoys spacious discretion. Cf. Rust v. Sullivan, 500 U.S. 173, 194, 111 S.Ct. 1759, 1773, 114 L.Ed.2d 233 (1991) ("When the government appropriates public funds to establish a program it is entitled to define the limits of that program"); Regan v. Taxation with Representation of Wash., 461 U.S. 540, 103 S.Ct. 1997, 76 L.Ed.2d 129 (1983) (upholding government subsidization decision partial to one class of speaker).
Accordingly, the Court recognizes that the relevant enquiry in this case is not merely whether the University bases its funding decisions on the subject matter of student speech; if there is an infirmity in the basis for the University's funding decision, it must be that the University is impermissibly distinguishing among competing viewpoints, ante, at ____, citing, inter alia, Perry, supra, at 46, 103 S.Ct., at 957; see also Lamb's Chapel, 508 U.S. at ----, 113 S.Ct. at 2144-2145 (subject matter distinctions permissible in controlling access to limited public forum if reasonable and viewpoint neutral); Cornelius v. NAACP Legal Defense & Ed. Fund, Inc., 473 U.S. 788, 806, 105 S.Ct. 3439, 3451, 87 L.Ed.2d 567 (1985) (similar); Regan, supra, at 548, 103 S.Ct., at 2002.
The issue whether a distinction is based on viewpoint does not turn simply on whether a government regulation happens to be applied to a speaker who seeks to advance a particular viewpoint; the issue, of course, turns on whether the burden on speech is explained by reference to viewpoint. See Cornelius, supra, at 806, 105 S.Ct., at 3439 ("The government violates the First Amendment when it denies access to a speaker solely to suppress the point of view he espouses on an otherwise includible subject"). As when deciding whether a speech restriction is content-based or content-neutral, "the government's purpose is the controlling consideration." Ward v. Rock Against Racism, 491 U.S. 781, 791, 109 S.Ct. 2746, 2754, 105 L.Ed.2d 661 (1989); see also ibid. (content neutrality turns on, inter alia, whether a speech restriction is "justified without reference to the content of the regulated speech") (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). So, for example, a city that enforces its excessive noise ordinance by pulling the plug on a rock band using a forbidden amplification system is not guilty of viewpoint discrimination simply because the band wishes to use that equipment to espouse antiracist views. Accord, Rock Against Racism, supra. Nor does a municipality's decision to prohibit political advertising on bus placards amount to viewpoint discrimination when in the course of applying this policy it denies space to a person who wishes to speak in favor of a particular political candidate. Accord, Lehman v. Shaker Heights, 418 U.S. 298, 304, 94 S.Ct. 2714, 2717-2718, 41 L.Ed.2d 770 (1974) (plurality opinion).
Accordingly, the prohibition on viewpoint discrimination serves that important purpose of the Free Speech Clause, which is to bar the government from skewing public debate. Other things being equal, viewpoint discrimination occurs when government allows one message while prohibiting the messages of those who can reasonably be expected to respond. See First Nat. Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, 435 U.S. 765, 785-786, 98 S.Ct. 1407, 1420-1421, 55 L.Ed.2d 707 (1978) ("Especially where . . . the legislature's suppression of speech suggests an attempt to give one side of a debatable public question an advantage in expressing its views to the people, the First Amendment is plainly offended") (footnote omitted); Madison Joint School Dist. No. 8 v. Wisconsin Employment Relations Comm'n, 429 U.S. 167, 175-176, 97 S.Ct. 421, 426, 50 L.Ed.2d 376 (1976) ("to permit one side of a debatable public question to have a monopoly in expressing its views . . . is the antithesis of constitutional guarantees") (footnote omitted); United States v. Kokinda, 497 U.S. 720, 736, 110 S.Ct. 3115, 3124, 111 L.Ed.2d 571 (1990) (viewpoint discrimination involves an "intent to discourage one viewpoint and advance another") (plurality opinion) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). It is precisely this element of taking sides in a public debate that identifies viewpoint discrimination and makes it the most pernicious of all distinctions based on content. Thus, if government assists those espousing one point of view, neutrality requires it to assist those espousing opposing points of view, as well.
There is no viewpoint discrimination in the University's application of its Guidelines to deny funding to Wide Awake. Under those Guidelines, a "religious activity," which is not eligible for funding, App. to Pet. for Cert. 62a, is "an activity which primarily promotes or manifests a particular belief(s) in or about a deity or an ultimate reality," App. to Pet. for Cert. 66a. It is clear that this is the basis on which Wide Awake Productions was denied funding. Letter from Student Council to Ronald W. Rosenberger. App. 54 ("In reviewing the request by Wide Awake Productions, the Appropriations Committee determined your organization's request could not be funded as it is a religious activity"). The discussion of Wide Awake's content, supra, at ____, shows beyond any question that it "primarily promotes or manifests a particular belief(s) in or about a deity . . .," in the very specific sense that its manifest function is to call students to repentance, to commitment to Jesus Christ, and to particular moral action because of its Christian character.
The Guidelines are thus substantially different from the access restriction considered in Lamb's Chapel, the case upon which the Court heavily relies in finding a viewpoint distinction here, ante, at ____. Lamb's Chapel addressed a school board's regulation prohibiting the after-hours use of school premises "by any group for religious purposes," even though the forum otherwise was open for a variety of social, civic, and recreational purposes. 508 U.S., at ----, 113 S.Ct., at 2144 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). "Religious" was understood to refer to the viewpoint of a believer, and the regulation did not purport to deny access to any speaker wishing to express a non-religious or expressly antireligious point of view on any subject, see ibid. ("The issue in this case is whether . . . it violates the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment . . . to deny a church access to school premises to exhibit for public viewing and for assertedly religious purposes, a film dealing with family and child-rearing issues"); id., at ---- - ----, 113 S.Ct., at 2144, citing May v. Evansville-Vanderburgh School Corp., 787 F.2d 1105, 1114 (CA7 1986).
A number of other, less familiar examples of what amount to direct funding appear in early Acts of Congress. See, e.g. Act of Feb. 20, 1833, ch. 42, 4 Stat. 618-619 (authorizing the State of Ohio to sell "all or any part of the lands heretofore reserved and appropriated by Congress for the support of religion within the Ohio Company's . . . purchases . . . and to invest the money arising from the sale thereof, in some productive fund; the proceeds of which shall be for ever annually applied . . . for the support of religion within the several townships for which said lands were originally reserved and set apart, and for no other use or purpose whatsoever"); Act of Mar. 2, 1833, ch. 86, §§ 1, 3, 6 Stat. 538 (granting to Georgetown Collegea Jesuit institution "lots in the city of Washington, to the amount, in value, of twenty-five thousand dollars," and directing the College to sell the lots and invest the proceeds, thereafter using the dividends to establish and endow such professorships as it saw fit); see also Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U.S. 38, 103, 105 S.Ct. 2479, 2514, 86 L.Ed.2d 29 (1985) (REHNQUIST, J., dissenting) ("As the United States moved from the 18th into the 19th century, Congress appropriated time and again public moneys in support of sectarian Indian education carried on by religious organizations").
Congress apparently also reads our cases as the University did, for it routinely excludes religious activities from general funding programs. See, e.g., 20 U.S.C. 1062(b) (federal grant program for institutions of higher education; "[n]o grant may be made under this chapter for any educational program, activity, or service related to sectarian instruction or religious worship, or provided by a school or department of divinity"); 20 U.S.C. 1069c (certain grants to higher education institutions "may not be used . . . for a school or department of divinity or any religious worship or sectarian activity . . ."); 20 U.S.C. 1132c-3(c) (1988 ed., Supp. V) (federal assistance for renovation of certain academic facilities; "[n]o loan may be made under this part for any educational program, activity or service related to sectarian instruction or religious worship or provided by a school or department of divinity or to an institution in which a substantial portion of its functions is subsumed in a religious mission"); 20 U.S.C. 1132i(c) (grant program for educational facilities; "no project assisted with funds under this subchapter shall ever be used for religious worship or a sectarian activity or for a school or department of divinity"); 20 U.S.C. 1213d ("No grant may be made under this chapter for any educational program, activity, or service related to sectarian instruction or religious worship, or provided by a school or department of divinity"); 25 U.S.C. 3306(a) (1988 ed., Supp. V) (funding for Indian higher education programs; "[n]one of the funds made available under this subchapter may be used for study at any school or department of divinity or for any religious worship or sectarian activity"); 29 U.S.C. 776(g) (grants for projects and activities for rehabilitation of handicapped persons; "[n]o funds provided under this subchapter may be used to assist in the construction of any facility which is or will be used for religious worship or any sectarian activity"); 42 U.S.C. 3027(a)(14)(A)(iv) (requiring states seeking federal aid for construction of centers for the elderly to submit plans providing assurances that "the facilit[ies] will not be used and [are] not intended to be used for sectarian instruction or as . . . place[s] for religious worship"); 42 U.S.C. 5001(a)(2) (1988 ed., Supp. V) (federal grants to support volunteer projects for the elderly, but not including "projects involving the construction, operation, or maintenance of so much of any facility used or to be used for sectarian instruction or as a place for religious worship"); 42 U.S.C. 9858k(a) (1988 ed., Supp. V) (no child care and development block grants "shall be expended for any sectarian purpose or activity, including sectarian worship or instruction").
"QUESTION: Counsel, in your earlier discussions with [the Court] you indicated that communists would be able to give their perspective on family. II assume from that that atheists would be able to give theirs under your rules.