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

Heading: Burdening of free speech.

Text: 63 Even if the Regents could satisfy the first and second prongs, they cannot satisfy Lehnert's third and final prong by proving that the forced funding does not significantly add[ ] to the burdening of free speech inherent in achieving those interests. This prong recognizes that any time the government forces individuals to fund private organizations, a burden on free speech and association may incidentally result, but that burden may be justified by an important governmental interest. Assuming there is a vital governmental interest in funding (which we have concluded there is not), the question then becomes whether a specific expenditure adds to the burden on speech inherent in the mandated funding of the organization in the first instance. If it does, funding those expenditures cannot constitutionally be required even if it is germane to an organization's mission. 64 In determining whether using compelled fees to fund a private organization which engages in political and ideological activities significantly adds to the burdening of free speech, we are again guided by Lehnert. In Lehnert, the Court held that funding political lobbying and using objecting employees' funds to garner public support present[s] additional 'interference with the First Amendment interests of objecting employees.'  500 U.S. at 521-22, 111 S.Ct. 1950 (internal citation omitted). In doing so, the Court explained: 65 [t]he burden upon freedom of expression is particularly great where, as here, the compelled speech is in a public context. By utilizing petitioners' funds for political lobbying and to garner the support of the public in its endeavors, the union would use each dissenter as an instrument for fostering public adherence to an ideological point of view he finds unacceptable. [Wooley v.] Maynard, 430 U.S. 705, 715, 97 S.Ct. 1428, 51 L.Ed.2d 752 (1977). The First Amendment protects the individual's right of participation in these spheres from precisely this type of invasion. Where the subject of compelled speech is the discussion of governmental affairs, which is at the core of our First Amendment freedoms, the burden upon dissenters' rights extends far beyond the acceptance of the agency shop and is constitutionally impermissible. 66 Id. at 522, 111 S.Ct. 1950 (plurality). The Court further explained that [a]lthough First Amendment protection is in no way limited to controversial topics or emotionally charged issues, the extent of one's disagreement with the subject of compulsory speech is relevant to the degree of impingement upon free expression that compulsion will effect. Id. at 521-22, 97 S.Ct. 1428. 67 If there was any doubt, Lehnert makes clear that the Regents' policy cannot stand. Here the burden on objecting students' speech is particularly great; the private organizations use the funds to garner the support of the public in its endeavors, and as an instrument for fostering public adherence to an ideological point of view which the students find objectionable. The degree of impingement upon free expression that the compulsion will effect is also especially severe given the extent and source of the students' disagreement with the speech engaged in by the organizations which receive their fees. In this case, the speech to which the plaintiffs object includes such emotionally charged issues as abortion, homosexuality, and the United States' democratic system. The source of the plaintiffs' disagreement, as explained at length in their affidavits, is their deeply held religious and personal beliefs. 68 Notwithstanding these deep-seated beliefs, the Regents attempt to justify forcing the objecting students to fund these organizations because without funding less speech will result, and less controversial speech, and according to the Wisconsin Assistant Attorney General at oral argument, hateful speech has a place in our society too. That may well be true, but the Constitution does not mandate that citizens pay for it. See Regan v. Taxation With Representation of Wash., 461 U.S. 540, 103 S.Ct. 1997, 76 L.Ed.2d 129 (1983) (Although TWR does not have as much money as it wants, and thus cannot exercise its freedom of speech as much as it would like, the Constitution 'does not confer an entitlement to such funds as may be necessary to realize all the advantage of that freedom.' ). See also, Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia 233 (2d Amer.ed., 1794) ([I]t is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand for itself.). In fact it guarantees the opposite--that we the people will not be compelled to pay for such speech: [T]o compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves, is sinful and tyrannical. Abood, 431 U.S. at 234-35 n. 31, 97 S.Ct. 1782 (quoting Irving Brant, James Madison: The Nationalist 354 (1948)). Yet that is exactly what the Regents do, and to support this policy they again point to the educational benefits flowing from the very speech to which the plaintiffs so strenuously object. That by its nature is an interest in the compelled funding of private speech, which significantly adds to the burdening of free speech. 11 69 One of the Supreme Court's more recent compelled-funding cases, Glickman v. Wileman Bros. & Elliott, 521 U.S. 457, 117 S.Ct. 2130, 138 L.Ed.2d 585 (1997), confirms our conclusion. In Glickman, a number of growers, handlers, and processors (respondents) of California tree fruits challenged the constitutionality of various regulations contained in marketing orders which the Secretary of Agriculture promulgated pursuant to the Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act of 1937. The orders at issue imposed assessments on the respondents that covered the costs of administrative expenses and included the cost of generic advertising of California nectarines, plums, and peaches. The respondents argued to the Supreme Court that compelled funding of such generic advertising abridged their First Amendment rights. In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court upheld the marketing orders. In upholding the assessment, the Supreme Court relied on 70 three characteristics of the regulation scheme at issue to distinguish it from laws that [the Court has] found to abridge the freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment. First, the marketing orders impose no restraint on the freedom of any producer to communicate any message to any audience. Second, they do not compel any person to engage in any actual or symbolic speech. Third, they do not compel the producers to endorse or to finance any political or ideological views. (Citing Abood and Keller.) 71 Id. at 2138. 72 The third characteristic, that the assessment does not compel the producers to endorse or to finance any political or ideological views, id., proved of the utmost significance to the Court's ruling. Throughout its opinion, the Court reiterated the last distinction--that the orders do not compel the producers to endorse or to finance any political or ideological views. See, e.g., id. at 2140 (the germaneness test is clearly satisfied because the generic advertising is unquestionably germane to the purposes of the marketing orders and in any event, the assessments are not used to fund ideological activities.). In fact, the Court used the absence of political and ideological speech to distinguish Abood: 73 However, Abood, and the cases that follow it, did not announce a broad First Amendment right not to be compelled to provide financial support for any organization that conducts expressive activities. Rather, Abood merely recognized a First Amendment interest in not being compelled to contribute to an organization whose expressive [activities] conflict[ ] with one's freedom of belief. ... Relying on our compelled speech cases, however, the Court found that compelled contributions for political purposes unrelated to collective bargaining implicated First Amendment interests because they interfere with the values lying at the heart of the First Amendment--the notion that an individual should be free to believe as he will, and that in a free society one's beliefs should be shaped by his mind and his conscience rather than coerced by the State. (quoting Abood, 431 U.S. at 234-35, 97 S.Ct. 1782). Here, however, requiring respondents to pay the assessments cannot be said to engender any crisis of conscience. 74 Id. at 2139. 75 The very factors the Court used to distinguish Abood, however, in this case compel the opposite result. The students, like the objecting union members in Abood, have a First Amendment interest in not being compelled to contribute to an organization whose expressive activities conflict with one's freedom of belief. Glickman, 521 U.S. at ----, 117 S.Ct. at 2139. And here, unlike Glickman, requiring the students to pay the mandatory student activity fees does engender a crisis of conscience. Glickman, 117 S.Ct. at 2130. Finally, in the words of the Glickman Court: compelled contributions for political purposes ... implicated First Amendment interests because they interfere with the values lying at the 'heart of the First Amendment[--]the notion that an individual should be free to believe as he will, and that in a free society one's beliefs should be shaped by his mind and his conscience rather than coerced by the State.'  Id. at 2139 (quoting Abood, 431 U.S. at 234-35, 97 S.Ct. 1782). 12 In essence, allowing the compelled funding in this case would undermine any right to freedom of belief. We would be saying that students like the plaintiffs are free to believe what they wish, but they still must fund organizations espousing beliefs they reject. Thus, while they have the right to believe what they choose, they nevertheless must fund what they don't believe. 76 The Regents respond with a barrage of arguments, none of which have merit, or merit much attention. First, the Regents contend that the district court improperly applied a mixed strict-scrutiny/germaneness analysis. The district court did intermingle these two tests. However, we review this case de novo and have applied the Lehnert analysis, so any error on the district court's part is harmless. 13 77 The Regents next argue that there is no evidence that the student activity fees were used to fund the actual political or ideological activities the organizations promoted. However, the Supreme Court rejected this argument in Abood, 431 U.S. at 237 n. 35, 97 S.Ct. 1782 (holding that [i]t is plainly not an adequate remedy to limit the use of the actual dollars collected from dissenting employees to collective-bargaining purposes ). Therefore, whether or not the student fees directly fund the political or ideological activities is irrelevant; the First Amendment is offended by the Regents' use of objecting students' fees to subsidize organizations which engage in political and ideological activities. This also means that the Regents cannot earmark the objecting students' activity fees to fund non-political organizations and then continue to distribute the same amount of funding to the political and ideological organizations albeit with funds in name paid by non-objecting students. This too is merely a bookkeeping matter, with the end result being that the objecting student subsidizes the political and ideological activities of the organization. Abood, 431 U.S. at 237 n. 35, 97 S.Ct. 1782. The dollars are fungible and splitting the same amount in two directions does not cure the obvious subsidy. 78 The Regents next argue that because the organizations do not purport to speak for all students, the First Amendment is not violated. This is irrelevant. The First Amendment protects the right to free speech and the corresponding right not to be compelled to fund private speech. These rights are premised on an individual's freedom to say what he wants to say and conversely not say what he does not want to say. It matters not whether a third party attributes the private organization's political and ideological views to the objecting student. 79 The Regents also attempt to distinguish this case from Abood and Keller by arguing that here the objecting students can work through the democratic process, whereas in the union and bar association cases that remedy was not available. While it is true that the teachers in Abood were not members of the union, and therefore did not have a role in electing union leaders, in Keller the objecting attorneys were required to be members of the state bar association and therefore were able to work within the democratic system. Given that Keller did not distinguish itself from Abood on this basis, we won't either. Actually, there is a more basic flaw in the Regents' reliance on the democratic nature of student representation: The First Amendment trumps the democratic process and protects the individual's rights even when a majority of citizens wants to infringe upon them. 14 80 Finally, the Regents rely on Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, 96 S.Ct. 612, 46 L.Ed.2d 659 (1976), and Libertarian Party of Indiana v. Packard, 741 F.2d 981 (7th Cir.1984), to argue that as the government they can use the student activity fees to fund private organizations even if those organizations engage in political and ideological activities and speech. However, both those cases involved the legislature's appropriation of public funds raised through taxation. In Buckley, Congress appropriated income tax revenue to fund political organizations, while in Libertarian Party Indiana's legislature appropriated money generated by what in effect constituted a sales tax. 741 F.2d at 990. The student activity fee, however, does not equate to a tax. Rosenberger made this clear, stating that the $14 paid each semester by the students is not a general tax designed to raise revenue for the University.... Our decision, then, cannot be read as addressing an expenditure from a general tax fund. Rosenberger, 515 U.S. at 841, 115 S.Ct. 2510. See also, 515 U.S. at 851-52, 115 S.Ct. 2510 (O'Connor, concurring) (The Student Activities Fund, then represents not government resources, whether derived from tax revenue, sales of assets, or otherwise, but a fund that simply belongs to the students.). Therefore, Buckley and Libertarian Party are inapposite. 81 In sum, we conclude that the Abood and Keller analysis, as explained in Lehnert, governs the students' First Amendment challenge of the Regents' mandatory student fee policy. The Regents have failed to sustain their burden under this three-prong analysis; even if funding private political and ideological organizations is germane to the university's mission, the forced funding of such organizations significantly adds to the burdening of the students' free speech rights. Therefore, the Regents cannot use the allocable portion of objecting students' mandatory activity fees to fund organizations which engage in political or ideological activities, advocacy, or speech. We also hold that the 18 challenged private organizations engage in ideological and political activities and speech, and cannot be constitutionally funded with objecting students' fees. 15