The unanimity of the Court caught some by surprise, as the case seemed to present an issue that fundamentally divides people along liberal and conservative lines, pitting individual freedoms against the collective good. Ultimately, the Court had to decide whether the public interest was better served by ensuring that there was a public forum for the exchange of ideas or by allowing students to contribute to their own causes as individuals — even if they choose no cause at all. It's easy to see how the Court believed the free flow of ideas that colleges aim to promote would best be served by making the fee mandatory. After all, if you gave a college kid $300 bucks, would you expect it to go to the Sierra Club? In delivering the majority opinion, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote, "It is inevitable that government will adopt and pursue programs and policies within its constitutional powers but which nonetheless are contrary to the profound beliefs and sincere convictions of some of its citizens."
Why Students Have to Pay for Free Speech
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There was a miracle atop Capitol Hill Wednesday — nine lawyers agreed on something. The Supreme Court voted unanimously to uphold a college policy requiring students to pay an activity fee, some of which is paid out to political groups. The suit was brought by a group of conservative Christian students at the University of Wisconsin who found it downright un-American that they were forced to pay an annual $331 student activity fee that empowers some causes they abhor, including the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual Campus Center and the Students of National Organization for Women (which supports abortion rights). The students' lawyers likened the fee to the "compelled speech" the Court outlawed last year in a ruling that banned labor unions from requiring fees for their PACs. But this was different, the Court said, because unlike labor unions, the student union that administers the fund has no political agenda and doles the funds out on an ideology-neutral basis to any group that meets minimum organizing standards.