OPINION & EDITORIAL
Appealing Southworth
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Also by Badger Herald Editorial Board:
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- Redirecting control (April 23, 2003)
Related Stories:
- Do students care about seg fees? (November 27, 2001)
- Time for an overhaul (November 27, 2001)
- Southworth's loss is your gain (October 4, 2002)
- Seg Fees support true free speech (November 6, 2003)
- Circuit court improperly affirms viewpoint-neutrality (October 2, 2002)
by Badger Herald Editorial Board
Tuesday, November 27, 2001
The saga that is the Southworth case today reaches its latest, and most likely final, day in court.
For readers unfamiliar with the case …
* * *
In a suit filed five years ago, a group of UW law students claimed UW-Madison’s segregated fee system was unconstitutional. The students, led by Scott Southworth, argued the system illegally compelled students to support groups with whose ideologies they disagreed. For strategic reasons, Southworth stipulated that the seg fees were distributed in a viewpoint-neutral manner.
In an unanimous decision handed down in the spring of 2000, the Supreme Court ruled against Southworth, holding that Madison’s seg fee system was constitutional if the funds were distributed in a viewpoint-neutral manner.
Accordingly, Southworth amended his suit to remove the viewpoint-neutral stipulation, and won a resounding victory in U.S. district court. Judge John Shabaz found the seg fee system to not be viewpoint-neutral, and gave the university a chance to revise the system.
The Board of Regents dumped the job on ASM, which attempted to comply with Shabaz’ orders by implementing a number of lackluster reforms, including a required oath of viewpoint neutrality for student government members; an appeals process for student groups denied funding; mandatory audio recordings of all meetings; standardized forms to determine funding rationale; and new criteria for funding eligibility and amounts.
But last March, Shabaz found these reforms to fall far short of guaranteeing viewpoint neutrality. As he wrote in his decision, “the measures undertaken fail to address the central constitutional defect in the segregated fee program, [that is] the level of the student government’s discretion is unchanged.
* * *
We wholeheartedly agree the system is not viewpoint-neutral, and hope the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals will do the same.
Politicized student government members have unbridled discretion in determining the efficacy of a student group’s goals, their educational benefit and the accountability of those groups. To again quote Shabaz, “differentials in funding amounts have no objective root but reflect only the discretionary judgment of the student government.” Moreover, the appeals process offers no recourse for the students being taxed - only for groups griping about their funding.
In short, calling an inherently political process viewpoint-neutral does not make it so. Only objective standards would do, and on that count ASM’s reforms are sorely lacking.
What is unfortunate is that no new evidence can be introduced to the appeals court, for this fall’s funding debacle has only strengthened Shabaz’ arguments. There has been no objective rationale for nearly doubling student fees; rather, politically elected or appointed students arbitrarily decided an increased service was being provided to students. In fact, the lack of objective standards has turned the phrase “viewpoint-neutral” into an excuse to rubber-stamp each student groups’ funding request, resulting in this fall’s unprecedented and irresponsible increase.
ASM’s reforms have only made a bad system worse. Viewpoint neutrality under the current system is a farce both as a matter of law and practice. We are hopeful the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals again will side with Southworth, giving students the reprieve from seg fees ASM and the Board of Regents are determined to avoid.
