Lower Court Holding
Decision of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals
Students attending the University of Wisconsin-Madison must pay a student activity fee. A portion of this mandatory fee is distributed to private organizations which engage in political and ideological activities. Plaintiffs, students at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, sued the Regents of the University claiming that forcing objecting students to fund such organizations violates their First Amendment rights, as well as other Federal and State statutes. The district court granted Plaintiffs’ summary judgment on their freedom of speech and association claims, dismissed the remaining claims, and entered an injunction which both barred such funding and established a detailed optout…
