
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, September 29, 1995                   TAG: 9509290063
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: CHARLOTTESVILLE                                LENGTH: Short

DEMOCRATS AT UVA SEEK PUBLIC FUNDING

Student Democrats at the University of Virginia believe a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that sanctioned public funding of private religious activities should apply equally to political activities on campus.

Their organization applied for $729 from a student activity fund, was turned down by the student government and will appeal.

The Supreme Court ruled June 30 that UVa wrongly denied funding to Wide Awake, a student-run Christian magazine.

Jesse Rosenthal, director of Young Democrats, said Justice Anthony Kennedy's majority opinion in the Wide Awake decision suggests that political organizations should be entitled to receive a subsidy.

``He said you can't exclude an entire class of speech based on viewpoint,'' said Rosenthal, a 21-year-old senior. ``If the forum ... is designed to provide a variety of viewpoints, excluding political speech would seem to defeat it.''

The student government disagrees.

``The way I see it, the student council takes a political stance by funding a particular political group,'' Alvar Soosaar, the student council's vice president for organizations, said Thursday.

But Soosaar pointed out that it doesn't matter what he and other student leaders think right now.

``The current guidelines say explicitly that political organizations cannot receive funding,'' Soosaar, 20, of Belmont, said. ``There's very little interpretation I can make.''

Soosaar said there are a half-dozen political organizations on campus, including Republicans, Socialists and Libertarians, but only the Democrats have applied for funding.

by CNB