Widmar v. Vincent

Facts of the Case

From 1973 to 1977, Cornerstone, an organization of evangelical Christian students at the University of Missouri at Kansas City, conducted group meetings in classrooms and the student center on campus. Cornerstone was just one of more than 100 officially recognized student organizations on campus; university officials routinely allowed all such groups to meet in its buildings. Moreover, students were assessed a student activity fee of $41 per semester in order to help offset the cost to the university. Cornerstone meetings included prayer, hymns, and religious discussions. While Cornerstone's active membership consisted of about 20 students, its meetings, which were open to the public, sometimes attracted up to 125 people. In 1977 university officials refused to grant Cornerstone permission to continue using the rooms, citing a regulation that barred the use of campus facilities for religious worship.

The dispute arose because the university's board of curators had adopted the regulation in question in 1972, based on its belief that the First Amendment's ban on the establishment of religion required that the university prohibit religious worship in state facilities. Even so, the regulation permitted prayer at public functions on university grounds and allowed religious groups to continue using school chapels. However, there was no chapel at the Kansas City campus. The nearest University of Missouri chapel was at the Columbia campus, approximately 125 miles away. Without access to university facilities, Cornerstone members were obligated to move their meetings off campus to rooms which were, in their view, inconvenient and uncomfortable.

Eleven student members of Cornerstone filed suit, challenging the regulation as a violation of their rights to free exercise of religion, equal protection, and freedom of speech. A federal trial court in Missouri found that the university had never knowingly allowed any religious group access to its facilities. In granting the university's motion for summary judgment, the court was of the opinion that the regulation was not merely permitted, but was, in fact, required by the Establishment Clause. The Eighth Circuit reversed in favor of Cornerstone on the basis that the university's regulation was content-based discrimination against religious speech with no compelling justification. The court explained that the [Page 534]Establishment Clause did not forbid a policy of equal access to university property by all student groups. When university officials were dissatisfied with the outcome, the Supreme Court agreed to hear their appeal.

The Supreme Court's Ruling

In Widmar, the Supreme Court, in an eight-to-one judgment authored by Justice Powell, affirmed in favor of Cornerstone. The Court reasoned that university officials violated the fundamental principle that state regulation of speech should be content-neutral when they sought to enforce the exclusionary policy. Insofar as the state, through university officials, created a limited public forum for student speech, the Court noted that it was required to show that a policy that discriminated against religious groups was narrowly drawn to achieve a compelling state interest. While the state's interest in fulfilling its obligations under the Establishment Clause was compelling, the Court determined that the university policy went further than the First Amendment required.

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