After fighting the university for funding the past two years, UW-Madison's Roman Catholic Foundation may have finally won a battle, but they're still likely to lose the war.
The Student Services Finance Committee first denied RCF-UW segregated fees in 2006, saying the group did not meet the eligibility requirements of a registered student organization. After filing and losing a lawsuit, the group rearranged its board of directors to meet the requirement and reached a settlement that provided the group with $253,274 in seg fees for the 2007-'08 academic year.
When the university withheld $39,000 from the group this summer for items tied to prayer and worship, RCF-UW filed another lawsuit, claiming the university violated the First Amendment's viewpoint neutrality requirement, which was upheld in Rosenberger (1995) and Southworth (2000).
Last week, U.S. District Judge John Shabaz filed a preliminary ruling in this latest lawsuit, saying UW-Madison can no longer deny funds for religious activities because it violates viewpoint neutrality. So it's over, right? Wrong. Although the university can't deny funds specifically for religious activities, the ruling has a vital second part.
RCF-UW also alleged that the significant additional components"" requirement in the Associated Students of Madison's bylaws violated viewpoint neutrality, claiming this vague standard ""vests the student government with unbridled discretion.""
The bylaws state that a group applying for seg fees ""must provide a specific and identifiable educational benefit and service ... but must also have significant additional components."" When RCF-UW applied for seg fees last fall, this time for the 2008-'09 academic year, SSFC denied their request based on this standard.
On this question, Shabaz ruled in favor of the university, stating that even though the ""significant additional components"" standards is vague, it is meant to give ASM enough flexibility and discretion that is ""no greater than necessary to allow the student government to evaluate funding requests.""
""This semester, SSFC has taken a harder approach when evaluating eligibility for groups in order to focus our funding on service organizations,"" said SSFC Chair Alex Gallagher. Using the vague ""significant additional components"" standard Shabaz upheld, the group denied eight of the 15 groups applying for seg fees in the fall, including RCF-UW, the Jewish Cultural Collective, Promoting Racial and Ethnic Awareness and the Asian Pacific American Council.
After fighting for two years to receive funding - and racking up huge legal bills in the process - RCF-UW has now received just one year of funding, and if Shabaz's ruling proves true when the case goes to trial in June, they will probably never see another dime of segregated fees. Likewise, the JCC and other groups will be hard-pressed to prove they meet this standard.
Even if Shabaz believes SSFC's actions were constitutional, the ongoing viewpoint neutrality saga will probably never end because it sets up a system based on an ambiguous foundtaion. From this ambiguity comes confusion and frustration. Unless the court forces ASM to clarify what ""significant additional components"" actually means, another frustrated student organization is bound to challenge this vague standard once again.
After all, even if SSFC's discretion is ""no greater than necessary"" to evaluate funding requests, won't it eventually have to determine ""significant additional components"" by considering a group's viewpoint? Even if this isn't the reality, perception often trumps the truth.
If a student organization feels discriminated against because of a vague standard, they will raise hell and file another lawsuit, which does nothing but waste our time. If it's not now then it will be two years from now, or four, or 10.
Vague standards and vague laws lead to mountains of court cases because, even if there is precedent, the door is left open for future challenges. Vague laws are bad laws, and ASM's bylaws must be changed to better explain seg fee eligibility requirements.
RCF-UW won this battle and will lose the war, but someday another group will pick up the fight again, and again and again. Luckily, I'll be long gone by then and won't have to read about it.
Erik Opsal is a senior majoring in journalism and political science. Please send responses to opinion@dailycardinal.com
