Opinion ID: 1249253
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Restrictions on the Use of the Mandatory Fee

Text: The University's discretion to fund student activities through the mandatory fee is not without limit. On the contrary, as noted earlier the interests that justify the mandatory fee define the uses to which it may legitimately be put. The University's goal is to encourage a diversity of expression on campus, not to promote a particular ideological orthodoxy or partisan agenda. As the University's own policies provide, therefore, funding of student government and student activities groups and operations must be neutral and must not be used to support political candidates or ballot measures. Indeed, the use of such funds for partisan political purposes would violate the strictures of our holding in Stanson v. Mott (1976) 17 Cal.3d 206, 209-210 [130 Cal. Rptr. 697, 551 P.2d 1], that absent clear and explicit legislative authorization, a public agency may not expend public funds to promote a partisan position in an election campaign. [7] Nor should the mandatory fee be used to support student activities groups engaged in expressive activities off campus, including the currently funded ASUC lobbies. The purpose of the mandatory fee is to expose students to a diversity of views and to facilitate direct student participation in the University's ongoing intellectual discourse. Off-campus expression may be just as educational as on-campus speech for those involved, but the critical difference is that it benefits only those involved; it does not contribute to the campus discussion of ideas, and other students do not have the opportunity to hear and debate the views of off-campus speakers. [8] Finally, inasmuch as the purpose of the University is to serve as a marketplace of ideas in which students are encouraged to speak and participate, any use of the mandatory fees to interfere with such expression would also exceed the constitutional mandate. Thus, the University may properly deny funds to any group or activity which violates reasonable time, place and manner regulations or otherwise threatens to disrupt the educational process. As the United States Supreme Court has stated, Associational activities need not be tolerated when they infringe reasonable campus rules, interrupt classes, or substantially interfere with the opportunity of other students to obtain an education. ( Healy v. James, supra, 408 U.S. 169, 189 [33 L.Ed.2d 266, 284].) For example, the funding of activities designed to deny access to a particular course or professor would exceed the constitutionally permissible uses of the mandatory student fee. And when advocacy presents an imminent threat to campus order through the promotion of racial genocide, for example, the University may properly deny recognition and funding. ( Id. at pp. 189-192 [33 L.Ed.2d at pp. 284-286].)