WIDE AWAKE OR SOUND ASLEEP? UNIVERSITIES AND THE IMPLEMENTATION OF ROSENBERGER V. UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA

WIDE AWAKE OR SOUND ASLEEP? UNIVERSITIES AND THE IMPLEMENTATION OF ROSENBERGER V. UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA by Pamela Van Zwaluwenburg In July 1995, the United States Supreme Court handed down a decision in Rosenberger v. The University of Virginia regarding the University's refusal to fund the publication of a Christian student organization. In short, the Supreme Court ruled that the UVA was in violation of the Free Speech clause because, in funding decisions, it was discriminating on the basis of the Christian viewpoint of the organization. This study assesses the response of universities to Rosenberger, linking it to the intermediary role of the other actors involved, and offering an explanation as to why universities responded differently to the same Court mandate. The research question is: How and why did four-year universities respond to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Rosenberger? Based on four theories found in judicial implementation literature theories – communications, utility, attitudinal, and organizational – we posited that the responses of the universities will be affected by: 1) the nature of the communication to the college administrator; 2) the perceived costs and benefits to complying with the decision; 3) the attitudes of the administrator responsible for policy changes; and 4) characteristics of the institution, such as demographics. We surveyed the four-year public universities and utilized logistic regression to explain the difference between institutions that became compliant versus ones that remained noncompliance. The key findings of our survey and statistical analyses had several components to it. First, we found that over 66% percent of the schools surveyed had already been allowing religious and political student organizations to receive funding pre-Rosenberger. In addition, we found that 27% (n = 64) of the universities surveyed were still not in compliance with Rosenberger. Lastly, we discovered that 40% (n = 97) of administrators surveyed had never even heard of Rosenberger. While none of our models proved to be statistically significant, largely due to the small sample size after removing the “already compliant” and “unaware” institutions, our key findings led us to conclude that, despite what the secondary population projected, the Court’s ruling did not bring about sweeping changes in university policies. WIDE AWAKE OR SOUND ASLEEP? UNIVERSITIES AND THE IMPLEMENTATION OF ROSENBERGER V. UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA