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Widmar
v. Vincent
454
U.S. 263 (1981)
The
Rothgerber Johnson & Lyons Religious Institutions
Group gratefully acknowledges the contribution of the
Ethics and Public Policy Center which provided the following case commentary taken from Terry Eastland, Religious
Liberty in the Supreme Court: The Cases That Define
the Debate over Church and State (1993).
The
Supreme Court here turned to a question of "equal access":
May a state university refuse to grant a student religious
group access to facilities generally open to other student
groups? The Court's answer was no. Three years earlier,
in McDaniel v. Paty, 435 U.S. 612, the Court had
held that a minister could not be disqualified on grounds
of his religious faith from serving as a delegate to a state
constitutional convention. In both cases the Court rejected
the argument that the no-establishment provision requires
the state to discriminate against religion.
Because
the Court in Widmar based its decision on the constitutional
protection for freedom of expression, it is not, strictly
speaking, a free-exercise case. But it arose in part in
terms of the free exercise of religion, and religious liberty
surely was affected by the ruling. Moreover, the case had
a clear establishment component.
The
University of Missouri at Kansas City routinely made its
facilities available to student organizations registered
with the school, more than one hundred in all. From 1973
to 1977 a registered group of Christians called Cornerstone
regularly sought and received permission to hold its meetings
in university facilities. But in 1977 the university, acting
upon a regulation prohibiting the use of school buildings
or grounds "for purposes of religious worship or religious
teaching," told Cornerstone it could no longer meet on campus.
Eleven student members of Cornerstone sued, alleging violation
of their rights to the free exercise of religion, equal
protection, and freedom of speech. The university regulation
was upheld in federal district court, which also found that
the regulation was in fact required by the establishment
prohibition. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
reversed.
Widmar
generated three opinions. The opinion of the Court— written
by Justice Lewis Powell and expressing the views of seven
members—and the lone dissent by Justice Byron White are
presented here. Justice John Paul Stevens concurred in the
judgment but wrote separately.
Participating
in Widmar v. Vincent, decided December 8, 1981, were
Chief Justice Warren E. Burger and Associate Justices Harry
A. Blackmun, William J. Brennan, Jr., Thurgood Marshall,
Lewis F. Powell, Jr., William H. Rehnquist, John Paul Stevens,
Potter Stewart, and Byron R. White.
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