Widmar v. Vincent (1981)
- Docket
- 80-689
- Decided
- 1981-01-01
Summary
Question: Did the refusal of the University of Missouri to accommodate voluntary student religious meetings violate Cornerstone members’ rights of equal access to a public forum protected by the Fourteenth Amendment? Did the refusal of the University of Missouri to accommodate Cornerstone’s religious meetings unconstitutionally abridge freedoms of speech, association, and exercise of religion? Conclusion: Yes and yes. In an 8-1 decision written by Justice Lewis F. Powell, Jr., the Court held that the university’s policy violated Cornerstone members’ First Amendment rights. He reasoned that when the university opened its facilities to student meetings, it created a public forum for those student groups; given no other justification, the university excluded Cornerstone based on the content of its members’ speech. While acknowledging the university’s obligation to comply with its constitutional obligations, Justice Powell agreed with the Eighth Circuit that a neutral policy toward religion would achieve this end. Justice Powell argued that any religious benefits from an open forum would be incidental because the forum was available to a broad class of both religious and nonreligious speakers and because the university was not showing approval of a particular religious sect or practice. Justice Powell rejected the university’s argument that the Missouri Constitution compelled it to exclude Cornerstone, noting that Cornerstone’s First Amendment interests outweighed this state interest through the supremacy clause. Justice John Paul Stevens concurred. He rejected the majority’s description of the university’s student meetings policy as the creation of a public forum, but agreed that the university failed to justify its refusal to allow Cornerstone to worship on campus. Justice Byron White dissented. He rejected the argument that the university created a public forum, but also suggested that the university’s fear of appearing to subsidize religion was too extreme. He balanced the state’s interest in enforcing its regulation with the burden on Cornerstone’s members’ ability to freely exercise their beliefs, concluding that the burden on Cornerstone was minimal.