Significance: This decision further defined the limits of the separation of church and state. In this case the Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment prevents universities from withholding nonpublic funds from certain religious groups while distributing them to nonreligious ones.
Background: The University of Virginia established a Student Activities Fund (SAF), which received its money from fees that all students had to pay. The fund provided money to various student groups for extracurricular activities, but it did not provide money for political and religious groups. In 1990 Ronald Rosenberger and others formed a student group called Wide Awake Productions, which published a magazine presenting news coverage and editorials from a religious point of view. Wide Awake was denied funding from the SAF because of the religious viewpoint of its magazine. In response, Rosenberger sued the university, claiming that it had violated Wide Awake’s rights to freedom of speech and press, free exercise of religion, and equal protection of the law. The lower courts ruled in favor of the university, concluding that separation of church and state far outweighed the violation of the group’s rights.
Decision: This case was argued on March 1, 1995, and decided on June 29, 1995, by a vote of 5 to 4. Justice Anthony Kennedy spoke for the Court, which ruled in favor of Rosenberger. The Court ruled that the transfer of money from the SAF would not be in danger of violating the Constitution’s establishment clause because no public funds went directly to the student group. Also, funds were provided to all student groups on a neutral basis; therefore the university was in no danger of promoting one religious viewpoint over any other. However, the Court ruled that to deny funds to a student group because of its religious viewpoint was discriminatory.
Excerpt from the Opinion of the Court: “The governmental program here is neutral toward religion. There is no suggestion that the University created it to advance religion or adopted some ingenious device with the purpose of aiding a religious cause. The object of the SAF [Student Activities Fund] is to open a forum for speech and to support various student enterprises, including the publication of newspapers, in recognition of the diversity and creativity of student life.”
