Table of Contents
After Lawsuit, Eastern Michigan U. Agrees to Revise Unconstitutional Policy
In March, student organization FIREfor Life at Eastern Michigan University (EMU) enlisted Alliance Defending Freedom鈥檚 (ADF鈥檚) help in after it denied the group funding based on its 鈥減olitical or ideological鈥 views. ADF announced yesterday that EMU settled the case late last month, to fund all groups鈥攊ncluding FIREfor Life鈥攚ithout consideration of the groups鈥 viewpoints.
ADF the lawsuit鈥檚 origins on its website:
In February, FIREfor Life at Eastern Michigan University applied for student fee funding to host a pro-life display on campus called the Genocide Awareness Project, a traveling photo-mural exhibit... . EMU denied the request because they deemed the photos of the aborted babies and the event as too controversial, biased, and one-sided.
As ADF notes in its , EMU policy 鈥減rohibit[s] student fee funding for 鈥榩olitical or ideological鈥 activities of student organizations.鈥 According to the complaint, this policy was created in response to the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit鈥檚 decision in , which the school interpreted as prohibiting the use of mandatory student activity fees for 鈥減olitical or ideological activities.鈥 But in Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin v. Southworth (2000), the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the Seventh Circuit鈥檚 ruling and held that 鈥淸t]he First Amendment permits a public university to charge its students an activity fee used to fund a program to facilitate extracurricular student speech,provided that the program is viewpoint neutral鈥 (emphasis added).
This clash between EMU鈥檚 policy and the First Amendment was exacerbated by the fact that the policy was selectively :
EMU officials had been inconsistent with their funding guidelines and had allocated the same funds to political and ideological speech discussing 鈥渨elfare rights, women鈥檚 and abortion rights, religion, student activist training, and race-conscious causes, just to name a few.鈥
In initially denying FIREfor Life funding, EMU plainly violated the group鈥檚 right to freedom of speech by discriminating against these students based on their viewpoint.
EMU鈥檚 recent promise to fund FIREfor Life鈥檚 event despite its controversial nature is important not only to comply with the requirements of the First Amendment but also to further the purpose of the university. In Healy v. James (1972), the Supreme Court called the American college campus a 鈥渕arketplace of ideas.鈥 In , the Court explained how viewpoint-neutral disbursement of mandatory student activity fees universities contributes to that marketplace: colleges use student activity fees to 鈥渆nhance the educational experience of its students by ... stimulating advocacy and debate on diverse points of view.鈥
This outcome marks a significant and necessary change to protect EMU students鈥 rights to freely express themselves on a wide range of topics, and we applaud this result.
Image: Bruce T. Halle Library at Eastern Michigan University -
Recent Articles
FIRE鈥檚 award-winning Newsdesk covers the free speech news you need to stay informed.