Student's Long Fight Against Bias Ends in Victory
by Jim Brown and Jenni Parker
August 2, 2004
(AgapePress) - Christians have prevailed in an eight-year court battle with the University of Wisconsin. The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has awarded attorney's fees to those who represented former UW student Scott Southworth. In 1996, Southworth filed a lawsuit against the school, challenging the constitutionality of its funding system for student groups. He and his legal counsel contended that the University of Wisconsin was perpetuating a fee system that allowed student funds to be directed toward certain student groups, based on the views expressed by those groups.
The lawsuit challenged the unfair nature of the mandatory student fees and policies used to support controversial campus groups, such as the radical environmental group, Wisconsin Public Interest Research Group (WISPIRG), while they limited or denied funding for other groups on campus.
Attorney Joshua Carden with the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) represented Southworth in the lawsuit. He says the university particularly treated campus religious groups unfairly, discriminating against them by excluding their eligibility to receive student funds.
"The policies of the university and the funding organization itself was very viewpoint-discriminatory. You couldn't get funding unless you adhered to their ideas of what a good little student group should be," Carden says. "So the Socialist Party would get funded, the Green Party would get funded -- all of the left-leaning clubs would get all kinds of funding. And if you were a Christian group you couldn't get any."
Scott Southworth, now a unit commander in the Wisconsin National Guard, had just returned with his unit from more than a year of rigorous duty in Iraq when the Court of Appeals handed down its opinion. He says he is relieved by the 7th Circuit Court's ruling.
Jordan Lorence, senior counsel with ADF, commends the former student for his patience and commitment throughout the lengthy court battle. "Everyone pronounced this case dead, but Scott Southworth persevered through the toughest times, including a disappointing ruling by the Supreme Court that returned the case to the lower courts," Lorence says. "Fortunately," he adds, "Scott Southworth was willing to persevere and stick with the case until the university changed its unconstitutional policies."
ADF's Joshua Carden feels the eight-year case sets an important precedent. "If you leave unbridled discretion in the hands of a university funding mechanism like the Student Association here at the University of Wisconsin," he notes, "the 7th Circuit said, in this case, that is a component of viewpoint discrimination."
In addition to its finding that some of the University of Wisconsin's past procedures hid funding decisions based on viewpoint discrimination, the 7th Circuit judges ruled that the school must change how things will be done from now on. For instance, in the future, members of student government at the university will be required to vow not to discriminate on the basis of viewpoint. Also, according to the court's decision, funding of religious groups as well as political groups must be allowed, and the university must not be reinstate those policies that formerly excluded such groups from funding.
The court also said the university's student government must not reinstate its unfair referendum process, and must establish an appeals process so those applicant groups denied funding will have recourse. Also, member votes are to be recorded when funding is denied, and voting members must state in writing why they denied funding to a group.
