A decision Tuesday by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit upholds the UW System's segregated-fee allocation process, citing only three areas needing to be addressed.
The case, Kendra Fry, et al. v. Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System, originated in 1996. It alleged the university's process for allocating seg fees violates students' First Amendment rights because the mandatory payment system forces them to contribute to groups with ideological or political ideas contrary to their own. The case focuses on the process by which student organizations apply for and receive funding through the Associated Students of Madison's Student Services Finance Committee.
The decision cited three areas of the process needing changes'the allocation of travel grants by ASM's Finance Committee, a requirement that groups be in existence for two years before applying for seg-fees and the consideration of any past funding of a group when they apply. ASM representatives say changes made since the case was originally filed make most of these points irrelevant, but they will address these issues.
Both the defendants and plaintiffs declared victories following Tuesday's decision, which partly affirmed and partly reversed the allegations.
Patricia Brady, senior legal counsel for UW System, said she believes this decision confirms the legality of the university's seg-fee system.
\The court found that our fee system is Constitutional, that it does not vest unbridled discretion in student government,"" she said. ""Overall, they said that the system satisfied the standards the Supreme Court set when we went there a couple of years ago.""
Scott Southworth, one plaintiff in the case, viewed the court's decision differently, saying he believes ""it is a loss in many ways for the UW."" He said students won a major victory, as the courts said a student does have standing to allege wrongdoing even if they cannot cite personal discrimination. He also said the court's decision allowing a student plaintiff to allege unbridled discretion is significant.
ASM representatives said this affirms their current work and is significant to students nationwide.
""This validates everything we've been saying'it's not only constitutional, it works,"" said Bryan Gadow, chair of ASM and a UW-Madison junior. ""It reaffirms student power. A lot of other campuses across the nation will look to us.""
Since its beginning, the case has hinged on the concept of viewpoint neutrality and whether representatives are objective when deciding which student organizations receive segregated fee funding and in what amount.
This touches on the current issues surrounding SSFC's 2002-'03 funding process. In recent weeks, SSFC has denied multiple groups eligibility, resulting in appeals and calls that SSFC representatives failed to uphold viewpoint neutrality.
Gadow said the recent events show the effectiveness of elements of ASM's system, which the court supports.
""Even though students and humans alike are fallible, the system is constructed in a way that it has a sort of recourse,"" he said.
However, others see the correlation of events differently. UW-Madison political science professor Donald Downs said he believes viewpoint neutrality is too difficult to uphold given the political position of SSFC representatives.
""There's so much money at stake that students are very political and then we're asking them to be viewpoint neutral when they apply it,"" he said. ""Given the politics that we're seeing, I'm skeptical about how viewpoint neutral [the process] is and personally I'm pessimistic about the ability of student government to apply that.\
