Facts
- The University of Virginia, a public university, operated a Student Activities Fund (SAF) financed by mandatory student fees to support a broad range of student extracurricular activities related to the university’s educational purpose.
- Student groups could obtain “Contracted Independent Organization” (CIO) status by meeting neutral requirements, including filing a constitution, pledging nondiscrimination, and using a disclaimer stating the group was independent and the university was not responsible for it.
- Wide Awake Productions (WAP), a CIO, sought SAF funding (about $5,800) to pay an outside printer for a student magazine, Wide Awake, presenting Christian viewpoints on issues of philosophy and religion.
- The university denied funding solely under an SAF rule barring support for publications that “primarily promote or manifest a particular belief in or about a deity or an ultimate reality.”
- The SAF funded many other student publications and activities, including those expressing political, philosophical, and ideological viewpoints.
- WAP and its members sued under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging a First Amendment violation; the district court and the Fourth Circuit ruled for the university on Establishment Clause grounds.
Issues
- Whether excluding a student religious publication from SAF funding, while funding comparable secular student publications, constituted impermissible viewpoint discrimination in a limited public forum in violation of the Free Speech Clause.
- Whether the Establishment Clause required or permitted the university to deny funding to avoid unconstitutional support of religion.
Decision
- The Supreme Court reversed in a 5–4 decision.
- The SAF operated as a limited public forum for student expression; within that forum, the university could impose reasonable subject-matter limits but could not discriminate based on viewpoint.
- The denial of funding was viewpoint discrimination because it targeted a religious standpoint on otherwise permissible subjects.
- Providing SAF funding to print the magazine would not violate the Establishment Clause because the SAF was neutral and distributed benefits based on secular eligibility criteria to a broad class of student speakers, with the university acting as a disbursing agent rather than endorsing the message.
Legal Principles
- When the government creates a limited public forum for private speech, restrictions must be reasonable in light of the forum’s purpose and may not discriminate based on viewpoint.
- Viewpoint discrimination occurs when the government permits discussion of a subject but excludes particular ideas or stances on that subject, including religious viewpoints.
- A government program that distributes benefits under neutral, evenhanded criteria to a broad class of private speakers does not violate the Establishment Clause merely because religious expression is among the privately chosen uses of the benefit.
- Equal access to generally available funding for private speech is not treated as state sponsorship of religion where the program structure and disclaimers indicate the speech is that of private parties, not the state.
Conclusion
The Court held that the university violated the Free Speech Clause by denying student-fee funding to a Christian student magazine based on its religious viewpoint, and that equal treatment of the magazine within a neutral funding program did not create an Establishment Clause bar.