Court Opinion

ID: 9457631
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:28:09.532824+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:26.309002
License: Public Domain

COLEMAN, Circuit Judge
(concurring specially).
I am of the opinion that this is not purely a First Amendment case. The primary purpose of the proposed organization appears to be litigious rather than the right to receive and dispense information and ideas. I, therefore, would decide this appeal on Fourteenth Amendment (equal protection) grounds.
I do agree, in general, with the rationale of American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia, Inc. v. Radford College, 315 F.Supp. 893 (W.D.Virginia, 1970). In that case it was held that a tax supported college cannot apply restrictions to outside organizations “When such facilities have been made previously available to outside organizations”. The record shows the existence of such outside organizations, as “Young Democrats” and “Young Republicans” on the Southern campus.
I agree heartily with what Judge Dalton wrote in Radford,
“Student organizations do not have an unqualified right to be recognized by a college administration. College officials properly have wide discretion in operating the school and in determining what actions are most compatible with its educational objectives * * *. This Court has no desire to interfere with the operations of any school or to give encouragement to the trend of increasing challenges to the considered decisions of university administrators.” 315 F.Supp. 896.
On the record compiled below, however, Mississippi Southern failed to develop constitutionally permissible ground for the exclusion of A.C.L.U.
In this state of affairs I can only point to the language in Radford, supra, 315 F. Supp. at 899:
“If their conduct as a campus organization is unduly disruptive of the orderly functioning of the institution, this court will be the first to reconsider its decision.”
With this comment, I concur in the opinion prepared for the Court by Judge WISDOM.