By Joan Biskupic
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 23, 2000; Page A02

Public colleges can require students to pay activities fees that are used to support groups engaging in political advocacy opposed by some students, the Supreme Court ruled yesterday in a case that originated on a campus famous for its liberalism.

The justices unanimously rejected a free-speech claim brought by a Christian law student at the University of Wisconsin who objected to his money being funneled to student organizations that speak out on gay rights, the environment and other liberal causes.

"The university may determine that its mission is well served if students have the means to engage in dynamic discussions of philosophical, religious, scientific, social and political subjects in their extracurricular life," Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote. "If the university reaches this conclusion, it is entitled to impose a mandatory fee to sustain an open dialogue to these ends."

Federal courts had been split on the constitutionality of mandatory student-fee programs. Yesterday's decision reversed a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit that students cannot be forced to contribute to organizations whose activities conflict with their personal views.

"It's a very important decision for the proposition that universities should be places of wide-open speech, including unpopular speech [and] sometimes outrageous speech," Wisconsin Attorney General James E. Doyle said.

Jordan Lorence, attorney for student Scott Southworth, said he was disappointed that "the court didn't recognize that students have a right to remain silent, that they should have a right to be removed from the debate." He said he would be pursuing further litigation because he believes the University of Wisconsin money is not allocated under neutral criteria but is "skewed to the left."

Southworth sued when the Madison campus refused to waive his $331 annual student activity fee for the 1995-96 term. He said he particularly objected to it being channeled to groups such as the UW Greens, the Campus Women's Center, Amnesty International and the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Campus Center. In an interview last November, Southworth denounced "being forced to support the propagation of opinions that I disagree with--on an ideological basis, a political basis and especially on a religious basis."

But yesterday the Supreme Court said the First Amendment allows the policy as long as the money is given out under neutral criteria that do not favor some points of view over others. Kennedy noted in his opinion for the court that the university believes the activity fees enhance the educational experience, and he highlighted the academic tradition of free and diverse debate.

He distinguished the court's reasoning in this case from earlier rulings that mandatory bar fees paid by lawyers and fees paid to unions by nonunion workers could not be used for political advocacy. In those cases, the court had ruled fees could be used only for activities that were "germane" to the purposes of the bar association or union.

"To insist upon asking what speech is germane would be contrary to the very goal the university seeks to pursue," Kennedy wrote yesterday. "It is not for the court to say what is or is not germane to the ideas to be pursued in an institution of higher learning."

He likened the University of Wisconsin dispute to a 1995 case in which the court ruled that when a university sets up a general scheme for disbursing student activity funds, it must subsidize secular and religious publications on the same basis. The guiding principle, he said, is that funds be allocated in a way that does not favor certain viewpoints over others.

Dozens of education, labor and political groups had entered the case, divided over how far campuses can go in using student funds to foster diverse debate. Reaction yesterday was similarly split.

"The ruling is a significant victory for universities nationwide, especially for gay and lesbian student groups," said Matthew Coles of the American Civil Liberties Union, who asserted that those groups have been particularly targeted by students opposed to paying activities fees in other cases across the country.

But Mathew Staver of the Liberty Counsel, a Florida-based religious rights group, countered: "The First Amendment should protect students who don't want to support a message they disagree with."

While the court was unanimous in upholding the University of Wisconsin's policy, three justices issued a separate concurring opinion saying they disagreed with the majority's blanket requirement that all fees be allocated on viewpoint neutral criteria. Justices David H. Souter, John Paul Stevens and Stephen G. Breyer said the majority should have stopped with its rejection of Southworth's First Amendment claim; they suggested a requirement of viewpoint neutrality could encroach on academic freedom in other contexts.

The case is Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin v. Southworth.