Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, September 30, 1995 TAG: 9510020024
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
In June, you may recall, the high court overturned UVa's policy of not using a mandatory fee to subsidize the publications of proselytizing student religious groups. The court decided it knew better than to leave the matter to the discretion of university officials.
Though UVa is a state agency, the suit against it - brought by the publisher of Wide Awake: A Christian Perspective - was supported by Attorney General James Gilmore, elected in 1993 as Allen's Republican running mate. Whether this was a matter of conscience or of kowtowing to the Christian Coalition, or a combination of the two, we can only speculate.
Some religious-right activists are claiming the case sets precedent for requiring expenditure of public funds for parochial schools. That is for future battles to decide. At least the issue facing UVa, with its publications policy, was settled by the Supreme Court's decision.
Or was it?
It so happens groups promoting religious beliefs weren't the only kind ineligible for funding under the UVa policy. A similar rule against subsidizing publications of partisan political groups, for example, remains in force. This week, campus Young Democrats said they will appeal the denial of funds for their publications.
Such a challenge, given the court's tortured reasoning in the Wide Awake precedent, was predictable. Indeed, the possibility was foreseen by state Deputy Attorney General William Hurd, in an Aug. 21 letter to UVa's lawyer.
In the Wide Awake ruling, the court by a 5-4 vote managed to conclude several odd things. A mandatory fee collected by a public university, the court said, isn't really public money. Paying printing costs, the court said, isn't really a subsidy.
Excluding proselytizing groups from funding, the court said, is not simply a matter of limiting the subject matter of discussion, but is rather a matter of discriminating against certain viewpoints. (Never mind that the UVa policy applied to the promotion of all viewpoints - including atheism - about the deity or an ultimate reality.)
The same conclusions, however hard to follow, may well govern in an appeal brought by a political group heretofore ineligible for the publications subsidy, or whatever it is. Ditto the publications of honor societies, and of fraternities and sororities, also currently excluded under the UVa rule.
So watch out for the newly hatched chickens. The court's logic was precious all right, but the egg it laid - with Gilmore's help - was anything but golden.
by CNB