Lace v. University of Vermont, 163-71
| Decision Date | 03 April 1973 |
| Docket Number | No. 163-71,163-71 |
| Parties | Carter E. LACE et al. v. UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT and State Agricultrual College. |
| Court | Vermont Supreme Court |
Frederick J. Fayette, Burlington, for plaintiffs.
Latham, Eastman & Tetzlaff, Burlington, for defendant.
Before SHANGRAW, C. J., and BARNEY, SMITH, KEYSER, and DALEY, JJ.
This is an appeal by the defendant, University of Vermont and State Agricultural College, from a judgment of the Franklin County Court in Chancery declaring that the mandatory assessment of the student activities fee (also known as the student association fee) by the defendant university against the plaintiffs to be unconstitutional.
The plaintiffs, at the time this action was commenced, were students at the defendant university. As a requirement of enrollment, the plaintiffs were obliged to pay a student activities fee in the amount of $21.50 per student. This fee was collected by the defendant university along with the tuition fee and all other enrollment fees and deposited into and with its other accounts. The defendant university then transferred from its deposits to accounts designated for student association use amounts equal to the sums collected by it as student activities fees. In the academic year preceding this action, the total amount collected as student activities fees amounted to $112,000.00. The student activities fee was found by the county court to be 'assessed and allocated by the student association toward the support of student organizations and student activities.'
There were at the time this action was commenced approximately one hundred and five student organizations on the campus of the defendant university. The only organizations which received financial aid from the student association were those which submitted requests and obtained approval from both the student senate and the budget or finance committee of the student association. However, before any funds could be expended by a student organization, such expenditure required the signature of the faculty, administrative or student advisor of that organization. The board of trustees of the defendant university also maintained a continuing student activities committee, whose members were all trustees of the defendant university.
The mandatory student activities fee was voted on by the student senate, which is the legislative body of the student association. When this action was commenced, the student senators were elected by the students of the defendant university in proportion to the occupancy of dormitories and housing units, both on and off campus. In order to speak before the student senate, one had to be a student senator, an advisor, an officer, or one petitioning the student senate. All others wishing to speak before the student senate were required to request and receive a two-thirds majority approval from the senate itself.
Disbursement of the student association funds, after having been segregated and designated as such, was the responsibility of the bursar's office of the defendant university at the commencement of this action. Its interest in such disbursement was confined to bookkeeping procedures: examining vouchers and requests for funds, and issuing checks for the disbursement of these funds. It did not inquire into the purpose and nature of the expenditures.
On February 26, 1971, the plaintiffs instituted this action by bringing a petition for declaratory judgment praying that the Chancellor of the Franklin County Court in Chancery declare the student activities fee was not a lawful mandatory fee, or in the alternative that the trustees of the defendant university
'. . . be charged with the responsibility of supervising the expenditure of said fees and that the said funds not be disbursed without the Trustees first making a determination that the purpose for which the funds are to be expended are educational, cultural, recreational or social in nature.'
The heart of the plaintiffs' objection to the assessment of the mandatory student activities fee was found in paragraph eight of their petition:
'These named Plaintiffs and all other students similarly situated have been forced to finance, through the assessment of the mandatory activities fee, actions and activities which they wholly and totally disapprove; have been compelled to give financial support to persons advocating positions and views with which they wholly disagree; and have, by reason of said unauthorized and improper expenditure of funds, been cast in a public image of non-patriotism, lack of respect for duly constituted authority, and utter disregard for the rights and responsibilities of others,-an image which these Plaintiffs abhor and reject.'
The principal objections of the plaintiffs were to the expenditure of funds by the student association through the speakers bureau, for the campus newspaper entitled the Cynic, for defraying the expenses of the president of the student association for attending a national student conference at the University of Michigan, and the purchase of certain films.
The speakers bureau was established for the purpose of coordinating requests for speakers by the various organizations on campus. The trustees of the defendant university promulgated a speaker's policy in 1965. It provided, among other things that: (1) the opportunity be offered to balance a speaker with one of differing opinions; (2) the meeting be chaired by a tenured faculty member; and (3) the speaker be subject to interrogation by the audience. During the time preceding the institution of this action, the county court found that speakers were presented on the defendant university's campus and reimbursed out of student association funds 'who by their conduct, views and political philosophy have become and are highly controversial individuals.'
The Cynic, the campus newspaper, to which $21,000.00 of the student association funds were appropriated during the academic year immediately preceding this action, was found by the county court to have
'. . . consistently published editorials of a radical persuasion; espoused the causes of radical student unions; used its editorial pages to advocate political activism; published articles that have resulted in embarrassment to the plaintiffs; accepted advertisements for contraceptives; ridiculed and accused the President of the country of political guttersnipery and attacked him for 'politicking'. . . .'
The court went on to find that the Cynic
'. . . has pursued a course of blatant abuse of its rights as a free press and has evidenced a narrow-minded, dogmatic disgust with anything and anyone disagreeing with its policy, its beliefs and opinions, all contra to the pronounced policy of a free and independent campus publication.'
The national student conference, attended by the president of the student association, was found by the county court to be where demonstrations were planned to be held in Washington, D. C. The county court also found that the expenditure of student association funds for the purpose of defraying the expenses of the attendance of the president of the student association to attend this conference was approved by an individual who held both the posts of student advisor and director of student activities.
The films to which the plaintiffs objected to the purchase of with student association funds were found by the county court to be 'revolutionary'.
The county court found that not only were such functionalisms and behaviors repugnant to the plaintiffs 'as loyal and patriotic citizens', but also because they were compelled to contribute their money to the defendant university in support of them by payment of the student activities fee required by the defendant university.
The county court, in its judgment order, found that the mandatory assessment of the student activities fee by the defendant university 'to be in violation of the due process clause of the Constitution of Vermont and the Constitution of the United States' as long as the present method of supervision, control and responsibility for the expenditure and disbursement of the funds derived from the student activities fee should continue. The court also ordered the trustees of the defendant university to assume the responsibility, control and supervision of the expenditure and disbursement of the funds for uses and purposes 'as in their sound practical judgment will contribute in the greatest degree to the...
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...it is appropriate that many different points of view be presented to the students." (Id., 204 N.W.2d at p. 571.) Lace v. University of Vermont (1973) 131 Vt. 170, 303 A.2d 475 is similar. There, state university students alleged that the use of their mandatory student fee, which funded over......
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