Perhaps the most amazing thing about the five-year-old Southworth case is the UW Board of Regents’ blind optimism.
To date, the regents have approached the case with stunning arrogance — filing appeal after appeal but never preparing for an unavoidable overhaul of the student-fee system.
Following the (probably) final arguments in the five-year-old Southworth court case delivered Tuesday, it is likely the appeals court will order significant reforms. But even if the regents and the Associate Students of Madison emerge victorious, the current system will soon fall apart under the strain of viewpoint-neutrality.
No matter which way you look at it, the current segregated fee system is in need of reforms that can stand the test of time and judicial review.
First and foremost, UW-Madison should abandon any pretense of viewpoint-neutrality.
In allowing UW to collect mandatory student fees, the Supreme Court insisted that student fees be distributed in a viewpoint-neutral manner. That is, the KKK should be given treatment equal to the Multicultural Students Coalition. Even the most viewpoint-neutral members of ASM can recognize the inherent disadvantages of such a system.
Obviously, there are some political groups — namely those that spew hate and divisiveness — the university should not force students to fund. If ASM is allowed to consider the validity and desirability of groups’ message in distributing fees (i.e., abandon viewpoint-neutrality), students will not find themselves funding the unwelcome groups.
If the system survives the current legal challenge, it will surely not be long before a group of students tests the viewpoint-neutral tolerance of student government leaders. At that point, the regents will either balk and not fund the group, leading to another wave of lawsuits, or voluntarily overhaul the system to avoid funding the group.
Either way, according to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Southworth, when UW abandons viewpoint-neutrality, student fees can no longer be mandatory.
Other universities favor some sort of opt-in or opt-out system (we prefer the former, although we assume UW will adopt the latter).
But not all opt-out systems are alike — the university has dozens of models to choose from, including UW-Milwaukee’s self-determination system or the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities negative check-off system.
Unlike last December’s student government reforms, the next overhaul should be carefully crafted with an emphasis on students’ First Amendment rights. Such a system would be a welcome change from the current ad hoc policy, which to date has done nothing more than give an excuse to rubber-stamp irresponsible budget increase after irresponsible budget increase.
