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Widmar v. Vincent (454 U.S. 263) was a Supreme Court of the United States case that held that the University of Missouri at Kansas City violated the The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America when they prohibited a religious student organization, named Cornerstone, from holding their weekly meetings in a campus building, where they had been holding them for 4 years prior. The holding, which was decided by the Supreme Court on December 8, 1981, with Justice Lewis F. Powell offering the opinion of the Court, Justice John Paul Stevens providing the concurrence and Justice Byron White, the lone dissenter of the case, providing the dissent of the Court.

Background Of The Case
The defendants of the case Widmar v. Vincent (1981), belonged to a religious student organization, Cornerstone, at the University of Missouri at Kansas City, a Public university. The student group had been granted permission to conduct their weekly meetings on University property, in one of the buildings on campus. Following this, the University informed the defendants that they would no longer be permitted to hold gatherings for their organization citing the reason as: University regulations prohibiting the use of University property “for purposes of religious worship or religious teaching" (Widmar).

The defendants, members of the religious student organization, immediately sued the University of Missouri at Kansas City, which was brought to trial in Federal District Court. The defendants based their argument for suing the University, over their groups prohibition of using University property to hold meetings, on the University’s violation of inter alia, the Latin term for their (the student organization’s) rights to the free exercise of religion and freedom of speech that is granted to every United States citizen under the First Amendment of the Constitution. Unfortunately for the defendants, the District Court ruled in favor of the University, claiming that the University’s regulation was necessary in order to comply with the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. Since the University of Missouri at Kansas City is a Public university it is funded by the state, and is therefore obligated to abide by the Constitution of the United States. In terms of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, this means that the government and government run operations, which would include the University of Missouri at Kansas City, one religion can not be treated differently than another religion as well as religious entities cannot be favored over non-religious entities and vice versa.

After the decision, the defendants appealed the case to the Federal Court of Appeals. Upon review of the case, the Court of Appeals reversed the decision, ruling in favor of the defendants, and claiming that the University’s defense, that the ban was necessary in order to prevent the University from violating the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, was not strong enough to justify prohibiting the registered religious student organization from holding meetings in its facilities because there is no reason that the University cannot just provide equal access to facilities for all religious student organizations. The University then appealed this decision to the Supreme Court of the United States, where they upheld the ruling made by the Federal Court of Appeals.

Opinion of the Court
The opinion of the court, penned by Justice Powell, was not unanimous and upheld the ruling of the Federal Court of Appeals in favor of the members of the religious student organization, Cornerstone, at the University of Missouri at Kansas City. Powell describes, “UMKC has discriminated against student groups and speakers based on their desire to use a generally open forum to engage in religious worship and discussion.” (Widmar). The Supreme Court affirmed the decision of the Federal Court of Appeals, in favor of Cornerstone, the religious student organization at the University of Missouri. The opinion of the Court was significant for its interpretations of the first amendment as a whole, as well as the Establishment Clause and Freedom of Speech sections that fall within the First Amendment. The decision of the Court determined that allowing the Cornerstone religious student organization to hold their meetings in a campus building of the University of Missouri at Kansas City was not in violation with the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

In order to reach this decision, the Court looked at precedent interpretations of the First Amendment set by the Court in previous Supreme Court Decisions like Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971). The case was brought to the Supreme Court in order to determine whether or not the 1968 Pennsylvania Nonpublic Elementary and Secondary Education Act was unconstitutional. The Court ultimately determined that the Act was unconstitutional, siting violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, due to the act giving the Superintendent of Public Schools the power to reimburse primarily private Catholic schools for the salaries of their teachers using money meant for funding public schools and their equipment. In order to reach a verdict, the justices developed a test, named the “Lemon Test” after the plaintiff of the case Alton Lemon, to gauge the constitutionality of any legislation having to do with religion. The test encompasses three parts, known as prongs. The first, known as the “Purpose Prong”, to examine the purpose of the legislation and whether or not the ends justify the means in a constitutional way and vice versa. The second prong, known as the “Effect Prong”, measures the effect that the legislation will have and its constitutionality. The third prong, known as the “Entanglement prong”, was created to ensure legislation remained constitutional by maintaining the separation of church and state rather than intermingling, or entangling, the two entities. The Lemon test, was taken from the decision for Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971), and applied to the case of Widmar v. Vincent (1981) which resulted in the Court concluding that the University of Missouri of at Kansas City was in violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

Concurrence
The concurring opinion, authored by Justice John Paul Stevens, offered a slightly different, but resulting in the same conclusion, take on the thought processes that led to the verdict. Specifically, Stevens claims that the case is not only an issue of Free Speech, but additionally should be used as a tool to guide the discussion on the limits of freedoms of public universities like University of Missouri at Kansas City. Specifically, Stevens promotes the idea that public universities should have liberty to determine when and how their facilities are being used, rather than having it fall under government discretion. Stevens claimed in his concurrence, “Judgments of this kind should be made by academicians, not by federal judges, and their standards for decision should not be encumbered with ambiguous phrases like ‘compelling state interest’” (Widmar). In his concurrence, Stevens promoted giving public Universities more authority when it comes to controlling their facilities. Justice Stevens took a more co that the government, specifically the state government of Missouri, should not have the majority of the power when it comes to determining how a University, even a public University, functions.

Dissent
The dissenting opinion, penned by Justice Byron White, argued that the University of Missouri at Kansas City was not in violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment because, “The Establishment Clause, however, sets limits only on what the State may do with respect to religious organizations; it does not establish what the State is required to do.” (Widmar) In his dissent, Justice White took used a very conservative, and literal, approach to the Constitution. The First Amendment prohibits Congress from creating any laws that infringe upon al rights to free expression by citizens, but does not declare the prohibitions on their actions besides that. At least in reference to the First Amendment, as long as Congress is not attempting to pass laws that infringe upon the freedom of expression rights of citizens of the United States, there are no additional restrictions of their actions under the First Amendment. Additionally, according to Justice White’s dissenting opinion, the according to the University of Missouri at Kansas City’s facility policy, the University is banned from having any campus buildings use for religious worship or non-secular purposes. Thus, after the University was informed by the student religious organization, Cornerstone, that their intentions were to use University facilities to host non-secular activities, it is the University’s right to deny the religious group that access on the grounds of adhering to the University’s policies.

Related Jurisprudence
The Supreme Court case Stone v. Graham 449 U.S. 39 (1980), which was brought to the Court the year prior to Widmar v. Vincent (1981), debated the constitutionality of a state law mandating that public school classrooms display the Ten Commandments. The Court determined that the law violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment because it not only intermixed religion with a secular establishment, a public school, but also favored one religion, Judaism, over other religions by only requiring that the schools display religious items from one religion rather than all religions. Similarly, in the case of County of Allegheny v. American Civil Liberties Union, 492 U.S. 573 (1989) the Court decided that a nativity scene with inscriptions honoring the divineness of God, placed alone on the grand staircase of the courthouse was a violation of the Establishment Clause because, like the law requiring public school classrooms to display the Ten Commandments, it favored a specific religion by only displaying religious items for that specific religion. Another similar case was the Supreme Court case Capitol Square Review and Advisory Board v. Pinette (1994) where the Court determined the hanging of a cross by a private group in a public forum that adjoined a statehouse did not violate the Establishment Clause. While both Stone v. Graham (1980) and Alleghany County v. Greater Pittsburgh ACLU (1989) resulted in verdicts that cited violations of the Establishment Clause, the cross in Capitol Square Review and Advisor Board v. Pinette (1994) was not in violation because of public forum law. This protects any form of expression of speech as long as it is in a public forum. While the public schools and courthouse can be accessed by a multitude of people, they are still government-owned buildings, making it a non-public forum space which grays the boundaries of what free speech is allowed and what falls versus fails under the Establishment Clause. Had Cornerstone chosen to hold their meeting on the quad of the University of Missouri at Kansas City, there would have been no issue with the University because the quad of a Public University is a government run public space, so it qualifies as a public forum.