Opinion ID: 756711
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Germaneness.

Text: 40 Under Lehnert, the first prong considers whether the mandatory fee is germane to some otherwise legitimate government scheme, in that case collective bargaining. This prong really presents two questions: initially whether there is some otherwise legitimate governmental interest justifying any compelled funding; and then whether the specifically challenged expenditure is germane to that interest. We need not answer the initial question because the students do not contend that the Regents lack a legitimate interest in the compelled funding of the student government or student organizations. 41 That leaves the second question: whether the challenged activity is germane to the government's asserted interest. Here the Regents assert an interest in education. They then contend that funding private organizations which engage in political and ideological activities is germane to education because the funding allows for more diverse expression and this in turn is educational. See reply brief at 2 ([E]xpression of diverse viewpoints is germane to the educational mission of the UW-Madison.). 42 However, germaneness cannot be read so broadly as to justify the compelled funding of private organizations which engage in political and ideological advocacy, activities and speech. For example, in Keller, the State Bar defended its funding of lobbying on nuclear weapons, abortion, and prayer in public schools arguing that it was authorized to fund activities in all matters pertaining to the advancement of the science of jurisprudence or to the improvement of the administration of justice. 496 U.S. at 15, 110 S.Ct. 2228. The Supreme Court rejected such an over-encompassing reading of germaneness, holding instead that expenditures to endorse or advance a gun control or nuclear weapons freeze initiative, clearly fell at the extreme end[ ] of the spectrum of expenditures not germane and therefore unconstitutional. Id. at 15-16, 110 S.Ct. 2228. 43 In Lehnert the Supreme Court again rejected a broad interpretation of germaneness. Lehnert involved a challenge to the union's use of dues to fund lobbying related to financial support of the employee's profession or public employees generally. The Court held that [w]here, as here, the challenged lobbying activities relate not to the ratification or implementation of a dissenter's collective bargaining agreement, but to financial support of the employee's profession or of public employees generally, the connection to the union's function as bargaining representative is too attenuated to justify compelled support by objecting employees. 5 500 U.S. at 520, 111 S.Ct. 1950 (plurality). The Court further concluded that the State constitutionally may not compel its employees to subsidize legislative lobbying or other political union activities outside the limited context of contract ratification or implementation. Id. at 522, 111 S.Ct. 1950 (plurality). 44 In these cases, the Supreme Court rejected arguments that political and ideological speech is germane to the governmental interest involved. In fact, in Lehnert, the Supreme Court stated that germaneness cannot be read so broadly in the context of a private sector union as to include political or ideological activities. Id. at 516, 111 S.Ct. 1950 (emphasis added). See also, Ellis, 466 U.S. at 452, 104 S.Ct. 1883 (holding that while union activities in question may benefit collective bargaining, the benefits were too attenuated to be germane). 45 Similarly, here germaneness cannot be read so broadly as to include forced funding of private political and ideological groups. The private groups are voluntary and may be open to both students and non-students alike. Many of the groups mirror organizations which exist outside of the University setting (for example, WISPIRG, the UW Greens, the International Socialist Organization, and Amnesty International all have non-university counterparts). And most of the private student groups (over 70%) do not even apply for funding, showing that the funding is not even germane to the private organizations' existence, much less germane to education. Moreover, unlike, for example, a political science class on socialism, the International Socialist Organization is only incidentally concerned with education. Its primary goal is the promotion of its ideological beliefs. The fact that some educational benefit may come from it is secondary, and therefore not sufficiently germane to overcome the objecting students' constitutional rights. The mere incantation of the rubric education cannot overcome a tactic, repugnant to the Constitution, of requiring objecting students to fund private political and ideological organizations. 46 To justify compelling objecting students to fund the private organizations, the Regents point to the expansive governmental interest they have-education--as compared to the limited interests involved in Abood and Keller--collective bargaining and oversight of the bar--and argue that because the interest is so broad, more activities are germane, including political and ideological activities. The Regents correctly recognize the breadth of educational; everything is in a sense educational (organizing a student activity, engaging in political and ideological speech, even choosing which political party or candidate to fund) even if it merely teaches you that you do not want to do it again. Yet when presented with a similarly expansive interest in Keller--the advancement of the law--the Supreme Court rejected such a broad reading of germaneness. Keller, 496 U.S. at 15-16, 110 S.Ct. 2228 ([T]o endorse or advance a gun control or nuclear weapons freeze initiative, clearly fell at the extreme end[ ] of the spectrum of expenditures not germane and therefore unconstitutional.). We therefore reject the Regents' argument. 47 The Regents also rely on Carroll v. Blinken, 957 F.2d 991 (2d Cir.1992) (Carroll I), and Carroll v. Blinken, 42 F.3d 122 (2d Cir.1994) (Carroll II), wherein the Second Circuit applied the germaneness analysis of Abood and Keller and held that a state university could constitutionally fund the New York Public Interest Research Group with students' activity fees even though some students disagreed with that speech as long as that organization spends the equivalent of the students' contribution on campus and thus serves the university's substantial interests in collecting the fee. 6 957 F.2d at 992. The plaintiffs respond by citing the contrary precedent of Galda v. Rutgers, 772 F.2d 1060 (3d Cir.1985), wherein the Third Circuit applied the Abood and Keller germaneness analysis, and concluded that while the New Jersey Public Interest Research Group offered some educational benefits to students, such benefits were incidental to the organization's primary political and ideological purpose, and this incidental educational benefit did not justify the infringement of the dissenting students' speech and association rights: 48 Although the training PIRG members may receive is considerable, there can be no doubt that it is secondary to PIRG's stated objectives of a frankly ideological bent. To that extent the educational benefits are only incidental--arising from or accompanying the principal objectives--and subordinate to the groups' function of promoting its political and ideological aims. 49 Galda, 772 F.2d at 1065. 50 The students also rely on the California Supreme Court decision in Smith v. Regents of the University of California, 844 P.2d 500, cert. den., 510 U.S. 863, 114 S.Ct. 181, 126 L.Ed.2d 140 (1993), which followed Galda and rejected Carroll. In Smith, students at the University of California at Berkeley challenged the school's mandatory activity fee which financed the student government and other student activity groups. The students claimed that using their fees to subsidize private organizations which engaged in political or ideological activities violated the First Amendment. The California Supreme Court held that: 51 The principles that we derive from Carroll and Galda, as well as Keller and Abood, are these: A university may, in general, support student groups through mandatory contributions because that use of funds can be germane to the university's educational mission. At some point, however, the educational benefits that a group offers become incidental to the group's primary function of advancing its own political and ideological interests. To fund such a group may still provide some educational benefits, but the incidental benefit to education will not usually justify the burden on the dissenting students' constitutional rights. Phrased in terms of the tests that courts have applied, a regulation that permits the mandatory funding of such groups is not narrowly drawn to avoid unnecessary intrusion on freedom of expression and it unnecessarily restrict[s] constitutionally protected liberty, [when] there is open a less drastic way of satisfying its legitimate interest. 52 Id. 844 P.2d at 511 (internal citations omitted). 53 Were we to have to decide based solely on Carroll, Galda, and Smith, we would find Galda and Smith's analyses and conclusions more persuasive, and we would conclude that funding of political and ideological speech of private organizations is not germane to the university's mission. 7 But our decision is not confined to lower court analyses. Rather, we have the Supreme Court's guidance on interpreting germaneness, and the Court's example, see supra 724-26, counsels against adopting the broad reading of germaneness which Carroll took. However, even if germaneness could be read as broadly as the Regents suggest and the Second Circuit allowed, and we (along with the Third Circuit and the California Supreme Court) are wrong in our assessment of the germaneness of a University's funding of private political and ideological groups to education, the Regents would be less than halfway home. As Lehnert made clear, germaneness is not the be-all/end-all question in the constitutional analysis, but rather is only the first prong: Under Lehnert, not only must the mandatory fee be germane to some otherwise legitimate economic or regulatory scheme, the compelled funding must also be justified by vital interests of the government, and not add significantly to the burdening of free speech inherent in achieving those interests. Yet Carroll did not consider these additional requirements, and in a case such as this involving the forced funding of political and ideological speech, those factors obtain the utmost significance. 8 54