Opinion ID: 1249253
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Majority's Response

Text: All of these flaws are manifest in the majority opinion, which concludes that at some undefined point the educational benefits of a student group's speech becomes incidental to its political or ideological interests, at which point funding from the mandatory fee becomes unconstitutional. The majority attempt to avoid all of the aforementioned difficulties inherent in this approach  not least of which is articulating meaningful standards for distinguishing between educationally beneficial and political or ideological speech  by referring the problem back to the Regents of the University (... they must ensure that the burdens are justified.) Having done so, the Regents must then institute a  Hudson  deduction ( Chicago Teachers v. Hudson, supra, 475 U.S. 292) permitting students to deduct that portion of their mandatory fee budgeted for political or ideological activities. This analysis is wholly untenable. As a practical matter, it raises a host of unanswered and unanswerable questions; as a legal ruling, it places the University in an impossible position. For example, is a film sponsored by the Chinese Students Association depicting the recent events at Tiananmen Square educational or political? The majority do not even provide a means of analyzing the question, much less of finding an answer. How would the majority characterize a student-sponsored forum on affirmative action in the University's admissions process, or a leaflet urging the University to divest its holdings in South Africa, or a speaker on the environmental ramifications of logging old-growth timber? Absent any meaningful standards in the majority opinion, how is the University possibly to characterize these activities? And how, moreover, is it to deal with the inflammatory consequences of labeling some groups educationally beneficial and therefore eligible for funding through the mandatory fee, while listing others as political and therefore ineligible? However the University decides, it will face a renewed barrage of legal challenges. Perhaps in tacit recognition of these intractable problems, the majority observe that the University is free to adopt another undefined method of funding, so long as it avoids the constitutional infirmities of funding political speech. The irony of the majority's solicitude for academic freedom in a decision which does irreparable damage to that principle will not be lost on the reader. In any event, the majority's holding thus comes to this: Expression on campus contributes to the educational mission of the University, but not if the political or ideological content of the expression exceeds its educational benefits; the majority refuse, however, to define this dichotomy; the Regents are in no position to do so; therefore, on remand the Regents may consider another method of funding. Such reasoning does not do this court credit. If the majority cannot define its own standard, it should not ask the University to do so. And if the University is free, as the majority acknowledge, to impose a mandatory fee for certain educationally beneficial speech, then it should not be forced, in effect, to adopt an all-voluntary system. For that is the only practical alternative, short of defiance, left to the University: Abolish the student fee, or adopt a check-off system which permits each student to contribute to the groups of his or her choice. In either case, funding will soon devolve into a political popularity contest. Thus, in a setting where provocative ideas should receive the most support and encouragement, precisely the opposite will occur; student groups will be subject to an ideological referendum, and the most marginal groups will receive the least financial assistance. This is truly Orwellian.