Opinion ID: 756711
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Organizations Funded by the Student Fees

Text: 11 The GSSF, the ASM budget, and student referendums can fund many different activities and organizations. However, the plaintiffs object only to the funding of organizations which engage in political and ideological activities with fees collected from students who object to such funding. (Henceforth we shall refer to them as objecting students.) Plaintiffs presented evidence of eighteen organizations which both receive student fees and engage in political and ideological activities: WISPIRG; the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual Campus Center; the Campus Women's Center; the UW Greens; the Madison AIDS Support Network; the International Socialist Organization; the Ten Percent Society; the Progressive Student Network; Amnesty International; United States Student Association; Community Action on Latin America; La Colectiva Cultural de Aztlan; the Militant Student Union of the University of Wisconsin; the Student Labor Action Coalition; Student Solidarity; Students of National Organization for Women; MADPAC; and Madison Treaty Rights Support Group. 12 Reviewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the Regents, as we must, we conclude that the 18 organizations listed above both receive student fees and engage in political and ideological activities. While the record is replete with examples, we limit ourselves to a sample: 13 WISPIRG, which received $49,500 in student fees during the 1995-96 school year, distributed $2,500 directly to its parent organization U.S. PIRG for use in lobbying Congress and developing candidate-voter guides. WISPIRG also published a voters' guide, which ranked congressional candidates based on their views on various pieces of federal legislation. During 1995-96, the UW Greens received $6,905 in student fees. The UW Greens, along with the Progressive Student Network (another group funded with student fees), lobbied the Wisconsin state legislature, and encouraged legislators to introduce three bills which would limit mining in the state. The UW Greens also distributed literature for the Green Party USA, a political party, and distributed campaign literature for Ralph Nader during his bid for U.S. President on the Green Party ticket. Along with WISPIRG and other groups, the UW Greens also organized a march on the state capital to show their opposition to the governor and the governor's budget. 14 Another recipient of mandatory student fees, the International Socialist Organization, advocated the overthrow of the government: Revolution Not Reform. Reforms within the capitalist system cannot put an end to oppression and exploitation. Capitalism must be overthrown. The structures of their present government--parliaments, the army, the police and capitalism--cannot be taken over and used by the working class. Along with the UW Greens and other groups, the International Socialist Organization sponsored a rally at the state capitol and at a congressman's office. The International Socialist Organization also joined with about 400 others to demonstrate outside a church located in Madison to oppose the ideological views of a church speaker. 15 The Campus Women's Center, which received $34,200 in student fees, used its bimonthly newsletter to advocate its political and ideological views. For instance, in the February/March 1996 issue of The Source, the newsletter published a lengthy article opposing the Informed Consent Bill (Assembly Bill 441), which proposed certain regulations of abortion. This article urged people to contact the Campus Women's Center to learn how they could work against this legislation: 16 We must act now to block this bill. You can obtain a copy of the bill at the Legislative Reference Bureau. Familiarize yourself with its contents and get prepared to defend women's rights to reproductive choice when the bill hits the Senate Floor in March. For more information or to find how you can become further involved, contact Jennifer at the Campus Women's Center: 262-8093. 17 Other examples include the Ten Percent Society which in its funding application stated that it has also been active in the political arena as necessary. The Ten Percent Society received funding and used its Internet Home Page to advocate legislation authorizing same-sex marriages, while condemning attempts by the Wisconsin Legislature to ban them. The Progressive Student Network and Amnesty International also received student fees: The Progressive Student Network focused on a variety of issues including free trade (NAFTA/GATT), welfare reform, ... right-wing backlash on campus, the GOP's 'contract with America,' etc.... And Amnesty International worked publicly for the abolition of the death penalty. 18 The defendants do not dispute that these and other organizations engage in political and ideological speech. Instead, the Regents argue that the First Amendment protects the rights of these organizations to engage in such speech. Of course it does. But the students do not ask that we restrict the speech of any student organization; they merely ask that they not be forced to financially subsidize speech with which they disagree. In other words, Amnesty International is free to oppose the death penalty and can continue to advocate its position; the Women's Resource Center can still speak out against informed consent legislation; and the UW Greens, the International Socialist Organization and WISPIRG can lobby all they want. The Regents and amici rely on the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech as support for their position, but the First Amendment does not guarantee that the government will subsidize speech. See, Federal Election Comm'n v. Massachusetts Citizens for Life, Inc., 479 U.S. 238, 256 n. 9, 107 S.Ct. 616, 93 L.Ed.2d 539 (1986) ([T]here is no right to have speech subsidized by the Government.). In short there is absolutely no question here of restricting the speech of any private organization. See, e.g., Smith v. Regents of the University of California, 4 Cal.4th 843, 16 Cal.Rptr.2d 181, 844 P.2d 500, 503 (1993) (In fact, the case has nothing to do with restrictions on speech. It goes without saying that all students are free to organize, to promote their ideas, and to seek by all legal means to persuade others that their views are correct....). 19 Other aspects of the mandatory student fee which the students do not challenge include: the Regents' authority to collect student activity fees; the Regents' use of the non-allocable portion of the student activity fee; the Regents' use of the allocable portion of the student activity fee to fund the student government; the Regents' use of the allocable portion of the student activity fee to fund private organizations which do not engage in political or ideological speech, activities, or advocacy; the Regents' use of the allocable portion of non-objecting students' activity fees to fund private organizations engaging in political or ideological speech, activities, or advocacy; or the Regents' use of the allocable portion of the student activity fee to fund the student newspaper, or the Distinguished Lecture Series. 20 This leaves a very limited constitutional question: whether the Regents can force objecting students to fund private organizations which engage in political and ideological activities, speech, and advocacy. The district court concluded that they could not, and granted the plaintiffs declaratory and injunctive relief. We begin by considering the declaratory relief.