In recent weeks local and national newspapers have ran stories on the segregated fee and registered student group (RSO) controversy at the UW-Madison. Surely, the average reader must wonder, "What is this all about?" The answer is really quite simple: discrimination. Religious discrimination at the UW-Madison. The entire segregated fee system at the UW Madison is presently being overhauled by UW administrators with one goal in mind: keep religious groups in general and the UW Roman Catholic Foundation in particular from being funded with segregated fees. Understandably, such a claim may seem an outlandish. Certainly, a reasonable person might wonder, "Why would the University be opposed to religious groups receiving funding?" Further, given the misinformation that's out there on the street regarding the establishment clause, no one could blame the average person for wondering, "Doesn't the establishment clause require excluding religious groups from using segregated fees?" My intention here is to offer a quick snapshot into how University administrators have answered these two questions and to compare their answers with federal and Supreme Court directives regarding the funding of religious groups with student segregated fees.
UW Leaders on Funding the UW Roman Catholic Foundation:
“The student government has been battling the University of Wisconsin-Madison administration over the allocation of segregated fees… It has become apparent that Chancellor John Wiley believes the system is significantly flawed and perhaps in need of an overhaul or even a dismantling. Much of the debate pertains to the use of segregated fees to fund a religious entity, the University of Wisconsin Roman Catholic Foundation.”- Rachelle Stone & Eric Varney, 2005 Student Government Chairs, Objecting to the administration's two-year attempt to get student leaders to de-fund the UWRCF
“Frankly I don't personally think religious groups [should] be recognized on campus.”- Eric Trekell, student program manager, Dean of Students
“University/State funds cannot be used to directly support the operating costs of a church or strictly church-related activity (e.g. worship service …)” – Dean Luoluo Hong & Interim Dean Lori Berquam, Instructing student leaders to de-fund UWRCF
“All students shouldn't have to support a very very Catholic thing that they may not agree with”
– SSFC Representative Barbara Kiernoziak, Objecting to UWRCF funding request
“The University [in administering segregated fees] must provide some protection to its students' First Amendment interests…the principal standard of protection …, we conclude, is the requirement of viewpoint neutrality in the allocation of funding support. Viewpoint neutrality was the obligation to which we gave substance in Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of Univ. of Va., 515 U.S. 819 (1995). There the University of Virginia feared that any association with a student newspaper [Christian] advancing religious viewpoints would violate the Establishment Clause. We rejected the argument, holding that the school's adherence to a rule of viewpoint neutrality in administering its student fee program would prevent "any mistaken impression that the student newspapers speak for the University." … When a university requires its students to pay fees to support the extracurricular speech of other students, all in the interest of open discussion, it may not prefer some viewpoints to others.”
– UW Board of Regents V. Southworth
Supreme Court Case
Contrasting the opinions of UW administrators with these clear Supreme and other federal Court directives, it is easy to see where the controversy, at bottom, lies. The courts have been clear that segregated fess are not, as the Chancellor and other administrators suppose, state monies nor can these fees be used, again as the Chancellor supposes, to fund certain activies and speech while discriminating against other ones. Funding religious and non-religious (or anti-religious) speech with segregated fees does not violate but upholds the establishment clause, which commands the government to be neutral– neither advancing nor hindering the free exercise of religion. For the better part of a decade, UW administrators fought in federal court against the rights of religious students at the UW. When these students finally prevailed at the federal and Supreme Court levels in the Southworth I & II, the University chalked it up to an unfortunate loss at the hands of few religious fundamentalists. For a decade the University fought these decisions; now it refuses to implement them. The University prefers the advice of Annie Laurie Gaylor of the Freedom From Religion Foundation over the directives of the Supreme Court of the United States.
“The Catholic Church… should promulgate its antiwoman, antigay, antiabortion, antibirth control, and anti-freedom of conscience message without ‘robbing’ student fees at a public institution. [The UWRCF is] a religious center not a “cultural” activity, it is a proselytizing activity. It is up to Chancellor John Wiley to have the wisdom to uphold the separation of church and state.”
– Annie Laurie Gaylor's letter to Chancellor Wiley
Regarding the funding of UWRCF
The question is: Will the students, parents and legislators of our University and State stand by idly as University administrators snub their noses at our nation's highest court and trample on the rights of religious students?
— Tim Kruse