THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, November 1, 1994 TAG: 9411010300
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B8 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: THE NEW YORK TIMES
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium: 74 lines
Accepting a case at the intersection of free speech and religion, the Supreme Court agreed Monday to decide whether a state university must subsidize student-run religious publications if it gives other student publications financial support.
The case is an appeal by a Christian student group at the University of Virginia, where students pay an activity fee of $14 every semester that is used to finance more than 100 student organizations and a dozen publications.
Under guidelines that bar financing for religious organizations, the student council in 1991 turned down the Christian students' request for $5,900 to publish a magazine founded to discuss ``Biblical Christianity'' at the university.
The university administration and two lower federal courts upheld the student council's decision. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond ruled earlier this year that while the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech would bar the university from treating publications differently on the basis of their content, the discrimination was justified in this case by ``a compelling interest in maintaining strict separation of church and state.''
The appeal, Rosenberger vs. Rector, No. 94-329, is the only religion case on the court's docket for its new term, although others could be added over the next few months.
Most of the justices have shown a willingness to take a new look at precedents barring not only direct but also indirect public aid to parochial schools.
At issue is not only the question of religious speech but also the limits the Constitution places on taxpayer support for religious organizations.
Even more broadly, the case allows the court to re-examine its approach to the clause of the First Amendment that bars a government ``establishment'' of religion.
The appeals court, applying the Supreme Court's leading precedent in this area, concluded that financial support for the Christian magazine, titled Wide Awake, would be ``a patent Establishment Clause violation.''
Several justices in recent years have urged reconsideration of that precedent, a 1971 case called Lemon vs. Kurtzman, under which government policies are unconstitutional if they have the purpose or effect of advancing or inhibiting religion or if they would result in an ``entanglement'' of church and state.
The appeals court in the University of Virginia case found that financial support for the magazine would have the effect of advancing religion and lead to an impermissible entanglement.
Under the university's policy, the student group has access to campus meeting rooms and the like on the same basis as all other groups. The only issue is money or, as the university put it in its Supreme Court brief, ``whether the state may directly subsidize a religious belief with public funds.''
The Christian group, on the other hand, framed the issue as one of discrimination against religion. The appeals court decision ``condones discrimination against - not neutrality toward - religion,'' said the students' brief, written by Professor Michael W. McConnell of the University of Chicago Law School.
A brief filed by the Christian Legal Society said the decision was a step toward ``a relentlessly secular society where religious expression is frowned upon and religious persons are denied the privileges afforded other citizens.''
The Supreme Court considered but rejected a second religion case Monday. The case was an appeal by a landlord in Anchorage, who refused to rent an apartment to an unmarried man and woman, saying he considered cohabitation a sin.
KEYWORDS: U.S. SUPREME COURT UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA
by CNB