For the first time since the Southworth Supreme Court case, seg fees are being discussed by much of the student body — not just The Badger Herald or the Associated Students of Madison. Fueling the debate is the unprecedented budget request of the Multicultural Student Coalition, which is seeking to provide a slew of new services to students.

And seg fees should be used to serve students — this article is not about MCSC. What seg fees should not be used for is to promote the right of a political viewpoint or ideology to be heard, an action being advocated by those who claim seg fees fuel free speech.

One of the central tenets of free speech is the idea everyone, regardless of the validity of his or her opinion, should be able to voice that opinion. If certain individuals find that speech objectionable, then the answer is not to censor the speech, but to explain what is objectionable about the speech in question.

Seg fee supporters have fervently seized on this line of reasoning, and make an argument similar to the following:

“Only through the open exchange of ideas can we be exposed to the many viewpoints of society. Here at Madison, the seg fee system exposes us to these many viewpoints. We are welcome to agree or disagree with them, because we can get funding and enter this open forum if we so desire.”

Alas, this argument is not a defense of the right to speak, but rather of the right to be heard. The distinction is slight but essential, for those who confuse the two miss the essence of free speech as assuredly as those who seek to stifle views they oppose.

On this campus we have hundreds of registered student organizations, many of which are political or ideological in nature. (The vast number of RSOs shows that diversity of viewpoints does not depend on seg fees. Diversity of viewpoints will be present wherever free speech is a cherished value.)

Every single one of these RSOs has a right to voice its opinion, and every one of them does. Those RSOs with the best opinions should naturally move to the forefront, for students will gravitate to the groups that make the most sense.

The best analogy is an economic one, and is frequently referred to as “the marketplace of ideas.” In an economic market, those companies that deliver goods the customer wants in the most efficient way possible are the most successful. Their product is in demand.

Similarly, ideas that make the most sense and are most important to people are the most successful, and the voicing of those ideas is in demand. Money is not a necessary prerequisite for these groups to be heard (on this campus, some of the most popular RSOs receive no funding from seg fees).

But returning to the economic model, when a company offers a good that consumers do not want, or when they inefficiently produce a product, that company goes out of business, or at the very least never grows — unless it receives a subsidy from the government. In other words, consumers who normally would not spend money on a company because they do not like its products or prices are compelled to do so by the government (via taxes).

The exact same thing happens with seg fees. Every single group receiving seg fees has a right to speak, but the right of some groups to be heard is being subsidized by our student government.

Instead of a “marketplace of ideas,” where the volume of speech is determined by the validity of that speech (as measured by the ability to attract students), seg fees arbitrarily decree that some groups have a right to be heard by students whether they like it or not.

This argument is not a refutation of the Southworth decision, when the Supreme Court ruled UW’s seg fee system as being constitutional provided fees are distributed in a viewpoint-neutral manner (another column entirely). I am not saying seg fees are unconstitutional. But they do hinder the benefits of free speech more than they fuel them.

Just as subsidies ruin an economic market, so do seg fees defeat the open marketplace ideal for free speech. True competition between ideas is impossible when money distorts the relative worth of that speech. The value of an opinion should be based upon the ability of its speaker to defend his or her beliefs when challenged by the speech of the others. That is the argument for free speech, and it is inapplicable in a seg fee system that hands some speech a megaphone.

Benjamin Thompson ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in political science.