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

Heading: The Case Law Concerning Mandatory Student Fees

Text: The foregoing analysis is consistent with every reported decision involving First Amendment challenges to the collection and use of a general mandatory student activities fee. Indeed, it closely tracks that of Judge Kaufman for the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in the most recent decision to date, Carroll v. Blinken, supra, 957 F.2d 991, 1001, certiorari denied ___ U.S. ___ [121 L.Ed.2d 224, 113 S.Ct. 300]. There, state university students sought to enjoin as unconstitutional under Keller and Abood the use of a portion of their mandatory student fee ($55 per semester) to fund a particular student organization, the New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG). There, as here, the federal court noted that the mandatory fee was used to fund a great variety of student groups, including athletic, social, recreational, service, ethnic and political organizations. ( Id. at p. 993.) While acknowledging the First Amendment intrusion on dissenting students, the Court of Appeals concluded that the University's mission amply justified the infringement. A university where NYPIRG petitions against nuclear power, where environmental groups advocate greater recycling, where opponents of South Africa debate opponents of divestment, and partisans of a dozen other causes press their cases is a university fulfilling its traditional mission in a free society. Were it otherwise, college would be a very quiet, intellectually diminished and ultimately irrelevant place. ( Id. at p. 1001.) [9] Although the federal court thus upheld the use of the mandatory fee to support NYPIRG's on-campus activities, it disallowed the use of such funds for its off-campus lobbying and statewide administrative costs. As the court explained: Students opposed to NYPIRG can be made to tolerate some compromise of their First Amendment rights when the benefits of a varied extracurricular life, hands-on civics training, and robust campus debate are all around them to approvingly take part in, actively oppose, or merely witness dispassionately firsthand. [Citations.] These benefits vanish when NYPIRG money is spent in the halls of the state legislature or at the main offices in New York City. SUNY Albany's interests, however substantial, are still, after all, those of the university and its community, not that of an independent statewide organization. ( Carroll v. Blinken, supra, 957 F.2d at p. 1002.) [10] Kania v. Fordham, supra, 702 F.2d 475 also involved a challenge by state university students from the University of North Carolina to the use of their mandatory student fees. Relying on Abood, the students charged that the partial funding of a student newspaper compelled them to support views with which they disagreed, in violation of the First Amendment. The federal circuit court rejected the challenge, holding that funding by mandatory student fees is the least restrictive means of accomplishing an important part of the University's central purpose, the education of its students. ( Id. at p. 480.) In this regard, the court noted a crucial distinction between Abood and the present case lay in the fact that the mandatory fees in Abood ... enhanced the power of one, and only one, ideological group to further its political goals. In contrast, [the student newspaper] increases the overall exchange of information, ideas, and opinions on the campus. ( Ibid. ) Although rendered prior to Keller and Abood, a number of state decisions have also rejected First Amendment challenges to the use of mandatory student fees. In Larson v. Board of Regents of University of Neb. (1973) 189 Neb. 688 [204 N.W.2d 568], state university students relied on an important predecessor to Abood, International Machinists v. Street, supra, 367 U.S. 740, [11] to challenge as unconstitutional the use of mandatory student fees to fund the student newspaper and speakers program, alleging that the mandatory fee system require[d] them to contribute to the support of political views and doctrines with which they disagree[d]. (204 N.W.2d at p. 570.) Applying what was for all intents and purposes an Abood analysis, the Nebraska Supreme Court rejected the claim, concluding there were important distinction[s] between the political activities of a labor union and extracurricular activities at a university. ( Ibid. ) Within reasonable limits, it is appropriate that many different points of view be presented to the students. ( Id., 204 N.W.2d at p. 571.) Lace v. University of Vermont (1973) 131 Vt. 170 [303 A.2d 475] is similar. There, state university students alleged that the use of their mandatory student fee, which funded over 100 student activities groups, a speakers bureau and the campus newspaper violated their First Amendment rights by compelling them to support `persons advocating positions and views with which they wholly disagree.' ( Id. at p. 477.) Distinguishing the labor union situation, the Vermont Supreme Court upheld the expenditures as a means of encouraging various and divergent student organizations to inject a spectrum of ideas into the campus community. ( Id. at p. 479.) And in Good v. Associated Students of Univ. of Washington (1975) 86 Wn.2d 94 [542 P.2d 762], the Washington Supreme Court rejected a similar First Amendment challenge, holding that the use of a mandatory student fee to support a campus speakers bureau, student resolutions on contemporary political issues and other extracurricular activities groups served the paramount educational goal of promoting an infinite range of ideas, theories and beliefs. ( Id., 542 P.2d at p. 769; see also Arrington v. Taylor (M.D.N.C. 1974) 380 F. Supp. 1348, 1364 [distinguishing the use of mandatory student fees to provide a forum wherein others may express their views from the use of mandatory dues by a state bar or labor union]; Veed v. Schwartzkopf (D.Neb. 1973) 353 F. Supp. 149, affd. without opinion, 478 F.2d 1407 (8th Cir.1973), cert. denied (1974) 414 U.S. 1135 [38 L.Ed.2d 760, 94 S.Ct. 878] [university is not constitutionally prohibited from use of mandatory student fees to support student association, newspaper and speakers program which provide a forum for the expression of divergent opinions]; see also Cantor, supra, 36 Rutgers L. Rev. at pp. 46-51; Note,  Fee Speech: First Amendment Limitations on Student Fee Expenditures (1984) 20 Cal. Western L. Rev. 279; Gibbs & Crisp, The Question of First Amendment Rights vs. Mandatory Student Activities Fees (1979) 8 J.L. & Ed. 185.).) Galda v. Rutgers (3d Cir.1985) 772 F.2d 1060, on which plaintiffs chiefly rely, is inapposite. There, the court held that a separate mandatory fee imposed for the sole purpose of supporting one organization, the New Jersey Public Interest Research Group (NJPIRG), which was otherwise ineligible to receive money from the general student activities fee because it was an independent rather than a student organization, infringed the plaintiffs' First Amendment rights. In so ruling, however, the Galda court emphasized that its holding was a narrow one and may perhaps best be explained by eliminating what is not at stake. This case does not address the problem presented by a state university's allocation of a mandatory non-refundable student activity fee. We are not concerned here with the question whether an organization with [NJ] PIRG's philosophic outlook may be funded through the general activities fund as are other campus organizations representing diverse views. [¶] In short, we do not enter the controversy on whether a given campus organization may participate in the general activities fee despite the objections of some who are required to contribute to that fund. See, e.g., Kania v. Fordham, 702 F.2d 475 (4th Cir.1983.... ( Id. at p. 1064, italics added.) Galda v. Rutgers, supra, 772 F.2d 1060, held only that a separate assessment to support one organization which expressed only one viewpoint violated the First Amendment rights of dissenting students. In so holding, it again emphasized the distinction between the special funding of NJPIRG, and the traditional funding of campus groups through a general student activities fee. As the court explained: There is room for argument that a university's role of presenting a variety of ideas is a sufficiently compelling reason for some infringement of First Amendment rights just as is the need for labor peace in the union dues cases. That contention loses its force, however, when an outside organization independent of a university and dedicated to advancing one position, is entitled to compelled contributions.... In that situation a university's ability to insure a balance in access is infringed, if not prevented, in some circumstances and the quid pro quo for payment to a forum disappears. [¶] Generally, when an activity fund comes into existence, all student groups on campus are free to compete for a fair share. That is not the situation here where the mandated contribution is earmarked for only one organization, an organization which has no obligation to use any part of the fund for the benefit of a group which pursues a different philosophy. (772 F.2d at p. 1067, italics added.) We are not confronted here with a separate mandatory assessment earmarked for one independent organization, but rather a general student activities fee in which all student groups on campus are free to compete for a fair share. ( Galda v. Rutgers, supra, 772 F.2d at p. 1067.) Thus, as Galda itself repeatedly emphasizes, that case is not apposite to our decision. [12]