Rosenberger v. University of Virginia was a case that focused on wanting eligible funding for student religious publications. Although, the university provided funding for other organizations, the student religious organization for publication did not meet the criteria, according to the University of Virginia.
Facts
The University of Virginia has several organizations on its campus that allows publications to be printed according to their specific requirements. There was one particular organization at the University of Virginia that created a Christian magazine Wide Awake founded by Ronald Rosenberger, that did not get this opportunity. This intended publication was deemed not eligible to get printed, due to this religious organization being one of the University of Virginia’s non-registered student organizations that exclude religious, philanthropic and political activities, along with activities that would jeopardize their tax-exempt status, or involve payment of honoraria, social, or entertainment-related expenses (Skelton, 2015). In fact, Justice Kennedy delivered, that the University withheld authorization for payments on behalf of petitioners for the sole reason that their student paper “primarily promotes or manifests a particular belief in or about a deity or an ultimate reality” (Find Law, 2015) was the reason why it was denied the funding for publication. Another fact about this case is that Wide Awake editors and Rosenberger filed lawsuit three times to get justification on why their publication was not eligible for funding, as these are some facts that lead to the major issues of this case. Major Issues A major issue concerning this case is the refusal to publish a magazine that is within its limits of subjects to be discussed. The University of Virginia does not exclude religion as a subject matter, as there are organizations, majors, and courses that relates to religion at this educational institute. However, the University disfavors student journalistic efforts with religious editorial viewpoints, while knowing religion is a vast area of inquiry, providing a specific premise, a perspective, a standpoint from which a variety of subjects may be discussed and considered (Skelton, 2015) is a major issue as to why this magazine was not published. The magazine’s content focused on multicultural backgrounds, philosophical content, and religious content. This type of content not funded by the Student Activities Fund was the major issue why the University did not fund Wide Awake publication, due to it containing these viewpoints. Overall, the issue for non-publishing was based …show more content…
The organization behind this magazine wanted to give interested students at the University of Virginia a Christian viewpoint on various topics. This book was not developed to change one’s religious views, only to provide the unifying focus for Christians of multicultural backgrounds (Skelton, 2015). However, the University’s Dean of students did not view this magazine in that way. This is what led to the court cases filed by Ronald Rosenberger, the founder of the student religious magazine. The holding for this case was that the University of Virginia denied funds available to a publication produced from a religious viewpoint, however, not to other student publications, which violate the First Amendment’s freedom of speech. However, the University of Virginia did not want to violate the Establishment Clause, but it is stated, if a university uses tuition money to support secular groups, it must use some of those funds to support religious groups (Skelton,