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NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the
preliminary print of the United States Reports.  Readers are requested to
notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Wash-
ington, D.C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order that
corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
--------
No. 94-329
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RONALD W. ROSENBERGER, et al., PETITIONERS
v. RECTOR and VISITORS OF THE UNIVERSITY
OF VIRGINIA et al.
on writ of certiorari to the united states court
of appeals for the fourth circuit
[June 29, 1995]

  Justice Kennedy delivered the opinion of the Court.
  The University of Virginia, an instrumentality of the
Commonwealth for which it is named and thus bound by
the First and Fourteenth Amendments, authorizes the
payment of outside contractors for the printing costs of
a variety of student publications.  It withheld any
authorization for payments on behalf of petitioners for
the sole reason that their student paper -primarily
promotes or manifests a particular belie[f] in or about a
deity or an ultimate reality.-  That the paper did
promote or manifest views within the defined exclusion
seems plain enough.  The challenge is to the
University's regulation and its denial of authorization,
the case raising issues under the Speech and Establish-
ment Clauses of the First Amendment.

                      I
  The public corporation we refer to as the -University-
is denominated by state law as -the Rector and Visitors
of the University of Virginia,- Va. Code Ann. 23-69
(1993), and it is responsible for governing the school, see
23-69 to 23-80.  Founded by Thomas Jefferson in
1819, and ranked by him, together with the authorship
of the Declaration of Independence and of the Virginia
Act for Religious Freedom, Va. Code Ann. 57-1, as one
of his proudest achievements, the University is among
the Nation's oldest and most respected seats of higher
learning.  It has more than 11,000 undergraduate
students, and 6,000 graduate and professional students.
An understanding of the case requires a somewhat
detailed description of the program the University
created to support extracurricular student activities on
its campus.
  Before a student group is eligible to submit bills
from its outside contractors for payment by the fund
described below, it must become a -Contracted Indepen-
dent Organization- (CIO).  CIO status is available to
any group the majority of whose members are students,
whose managing officers are fulltime students, and that
complies with certain procedural requirements.  App. to
Pet. for Cert. 2a.  A CIO must file its constitution with
the University; must pledge not to discriminate in its
membership; and must include in dealings with third
parties and in all written materials a disclaimer, stating
that the CIO is independent of the University and that
the University is not responsible for the CIO.  App.
27-28.  CIOs enjoy access to University facilities,
including meeting rooms and computer terminals.  Id.,
at 30.  A standard agreement signed between each CIO
and the University provides that the benefits and
opportunities afforded to CIOs -should not be misinter-
preted as meaning that those organizations are part of
or controlled by the University, that the University is
responsible for the organizations' contracts or other acts
or omissions, or that the University approves of the
organizations' goals or activities.-  Id., at 26.
  All CIOs may exist and operate at the University, but
some are also entitled to apply for funds from the
Student Activities Fund (SAF).  Established and gov-
erned by University Guidelines, the purpose of the SAF
is to support a broad range of extracurricular student
activities that -are related to the educational purpose of
the University.-  App. to Pet. for Cert. 61a.  The SAF is
based on the University's -recogni[tion] that the avail-
ability of a wide range of opportunities- for its students
-tends to enhance the University environment.-  App. 26.
The Guidelines require that it be administered -in a
manner consistent with the educational purpose of the
University as well as with state and federal law.-  App.
to Pet. for Cert. 61a.  The SAF receives its money from
a mandatory fee of $14 per semester assessed to each
full-time student.  The Student Council, elected by the
students, has the initial authority to disburse the funds,
but its actions are subject to review by a faculty body
chaired by a designee of the Vice President for Student
Affairs.  Cf. id., at 63a-64a.
  Some, but not all, CIOs may submit disbursement
requests to the SAF.  The Guidelines recognize 11
categories of student groups that may seek payment to
third-party contractors because they -are related to the
educational purpose of the University of Virginia.-  Id.,
at 61a-62a.  One of these is -student news, information,
opinion, entertainment, or academic communications
media groups.-  Id., at 61a.  The Guidelines also specify,
however, that the costs of certain activities of CIOs that
are otherwise eligible for funding will not be reimbursed
by the SAF.  The student activities which are excluded
from SAF support are religious activities, philanthropic
contributions and activities, political activities, activities
that would jeopardize the University's tax exempt status,
those which involve payment of honoraria or similar
fees, or social entertainment or related expenses.  Id., at
62a-63a.  The prohibition on -political activities- is
defined so that it is limited to electioneering and
lobbying.  The Guidelines provide that -[t]hese restric-
tions on funding political activities are not intended to
preclude funding of any otherwise eligible student
organization which . . . espouses particular positions or
ideological viewpoints, including those that may be
unpopular or are not generally accepted.-  Id., at
65a-66a.  A -religious activity,- by contrast, is defined
as any activity that -primarily promotes or manifests a
particular belie[f] in or about a deity or an ultimate
reality.-  Id., at 66a.
  The Guidelines prescribe these criteria for determining
the amounts of third-party disbursements that will be
allowed on behalf of each eligible student organization:
the size of the group, its financial self-sufficiency, and
the University-wide benefit of its activities.  If an
organization seeks SAF support, it must submit its bills
to the Student Council, which pays the organization's
creditors upon determining that the expenses are
appropriate.  No direct payments are made to the
student groups.  During the 1990-1991 academic year,
343 student groups qualified as CIOs.  One hundred
thirty-five of them applied for support from the SAF,
and 118 received funding.  Fifteen of the groups were
funded as -student news, information, opinion, entertain-
ment, or academic communications media groups.-
  Petitioners' organization, Wide Awake Productions
(WAP), qualified as a CIO.  Formed by petitioner Ronald
Rosenberger and other undergraduates in 1990, WAP
was established -[t]o publish a magazine of philosophical
and religious expression,- -[t]o facilitate discussion which
fosters an atmosphere of sensitivity to and tolerance of
Christian viewpoints,- and -[t]o provide a unifying focus
for Christians of multicultural backgrounds.-  App. 67.
WAP publishes Wide Awake: A Christian Perspective at
the University of Virginia.  The paper's Christian
viewpoint was evident from the first issue, in which its
editors wrote that the journal -offers a Christian
perspective on both personal and community issues,
especially those relevant to college students at the
University of Virginia.-  App. 45.  The editors committed
the paper to a two-fold mission: -to challenge Christians
to live, in word and deed, according to the faith they
proclaim and to encourage students to consider what a
personal relationship with Jesus Christ means.-  Ibid.
The first issue had articles about racism, crisis preg-
nancy, stress, prayer, C. S. Lewis' ideas about evil and
free will, and reviews of religious music.  In the next
two issues, Wide Awake featured stories about homo-
sexuality, Christian missionary work, and eating dis-
orders, as well as music reviews and interviews with
University professors.  Each page of Wide Awake, and
the end of each article or review, is marked by a cross.
The advertisements carried in Wide Awake also reveal
the Christian perspective of the journal.  For the most
part, the advertisers are churches, centers for Christian
study, or Christian bookstores.  By June 1992, WAP had
distributed about 5,000 copies of Wide Awake to Univer-
sity students, free of charge.
  WAP had acquired CIO status soon after it was
organized.  This is an important consideration in this
case, for had it been a -religious organization,- WAP
would not have been accorded CIO status.  As defined
by the Guidelines, a -religious organization- is -an
organization whose purpose is to practice a devotion to
an acknowledged ultimate reality or deity.-  App. to Pet.
for Cert. 66a.  At no stage in this controversy has the
University contended that WAP is such an organization.
  A few months after being given CIO status, WAP
requested the SAF to pay its printer $5,862 for the costs
of printing its newspaper.  The Appropriations Com-
mittee of the Student Council denied WAP's request on
the ground that Wide Awake was a -religious activity-
within the meaning of the Guidelines, i.e., that the
newspaper -promote[d] or manifest[ed] a particular
belie[f] in or about a deity or an ultimate reality.-  Ibid.
It made its determination after examining the first
issue.  App. 54.  WAP appealed the denial to the full
Student Council, contending that WAP met all the
applicable Guidelines and that denial of SAF support on
the basis of the magazine's religious perspective violated
the Constitution.  The appeal was denied without
further comment, and WAP appealed to the next level,
the Student Activities Committee.  In a letter signed by
the Dean of Students, the committee sustained the
denial of funding.  App. 55.
  Having no further recourse within the University
structure, WAP, Wide Awake, and three of its editors
and members filed suit in the United States District
Court for the Western District of Virginia, challenging
the SAF's action as violative of Rev. Stat. 1979, 42
U. S. C. 1983.  They alleged that refusal to authorize
payment of the printing costs of the publication, solely
on the basis of its religious editorial viewpoint, violated
their rights to freedom of speech and press, to the free
exercise of religion, and to equal protection of the law.
They relied also upon Article I of the Virginia Constitu-
tion and the Virginia Act for Religious Freedom, Va.
Code Ann. 57-1, 57-2 (1986 and Supp. 1994), but did
not pursue those theories on appeal.  The suit sought
damages for the costs of printing the paper, injunctive
and declaratory relief, and attorney's fees.
  On cross-motions for summary judgment, the District
Court ruled for the University, holding that denial of
SAF support was not an impermissible content or view-
point discrimination against petitioners' speech, and that
the University's Establishment Clause concern over its
-religious activities- was a sufficient justification for
denying payment to third-party contractors.  The court
did not issue a definitive ruling on whether reimburse-
ment, had it been made here, would or would not have
violated the Establishment Clause.  795 F. Supp. 175,
181-182 (WD Va. 1992).
  The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth
Circuit, in disagreement with the District Court, held
that the Guidelines did discriminate on the basis of
content.  It ruled that, while the State need not under-
write speech, there was a presumptive violation of the
Speech Clause when viewpoint discrimination was
invoked to deny third-party payment otherwise available
to CIOs.  18 F. 3d 269, 279-281 (1994).  The Court of
Appeals affirmed the judgment of the District Court
nonetheless, concluding that the discrimination by the
University was justified by the -compelling interest in
maintaining strict separation of church and state.-  Id.,
at 281.

                     II
  It is axiomatic that the government may not regulate
speech based on its substantive content or the message
it conveys.  Police Dept. of Chicago v. Mosley, 408 U. S.
92, 96 (1972).  Other principles follow from this precept.
In the realm of private speech or expression, government
regulation may not favor one speaker over another.  City
Council of Los Angeles v. Taxpayers for Vincent, 466
U. S. 789, 804 (1984).  Discrimination against speech
because of its message is presumed to be unconstitu-
tional.  See Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. v. FCC,
512 U. S. __, __ (1994) (slip op., at 16-19).  These rules
informed our determination that the government offends
the First Amendment when it imposes financial burdens
on certain speakers based on the content of their expres-
sion.  Simon & Schuster, Inc. v. Members of N. Y. State
Crime Victims Bd., 502 U. S. 105, 115 (1991).  When the
government targets not subject matter but particular
views taken by speakers on a subject, the violation of
the First Amendment is all the more blatant.  See
R. A. V. v. St. Paul, 505 U. S. 377, 391 (1992).  View-
point discrimination is thus an egregious form of content
discrimination.  The government must abstain from
regulating speech when the specific motivating ideology
or the opinion or perspective of the speaker is the
rationale for the restriction.  See Perry Ed. Assn. v.
Perry Local Educators' Assn., 460 U. S. 37, 46 (1983).
  These principles provide the framework forbidding the
State from exercising viewpoint discrimination, even
when the limited public forum is one of its own creation.
In a case involving a school district's provision of school
facilities for private uses, we declared that -[t]here is no
question that the District, like the private owner of
property, may legally preserve the property under its
control for the use to which it is dedicated.-  Lamb's
Chapel v. Center Moriches Union Free School Dist., 508
U. S. __, __ (slip op., at 5-7) (1993).  The necessities of
confining a forum to the limited and legitimate purposes
for which it was created may justify the State in
reserving it for certain groups or for the discussion of
certain topics.  See, e.g., Cornelius v. NAACP Legal
Defense & Ed. Fund, Inc., 473 U. S. 788, 806 (1985);
Perry Ed. Assn., supra, at 49.  Once it has opened a
limited forum, however, the State must respect the
lawful boundaries it has itself set.  The State may not
exclude speech where its distinction is not -reasonable
in light of the purpose served by the forum,- Cornelius,
supra, at 804-806; see also Perry Ed. Assn., supra, at
46, 49, nor may it discriminate against speech on the
basis of its viewpoint, Lamb's Chapel, supra, at __ (slip
op., at 6-7); see also Perry Ed. Assn., supra, at 46;
R. A. V., supra, at 386-388, 391-393; cf. Texas v. John-
son, 491 U. S. 397, 414-415 (1989).  Thus, in determin-
ing whether the State is acting to preserve the limits of
the forum it has created so that the exclusion of a class
of speech is legitimate, we have observed a distinction
between, on the one hand, content discrimination, which
may be permissible if it preserves the purposes of that
limited forum, and, on the other hand, viewpoint
discrimination, which is presumed impermissible when
directed against speech otherwise within the forum's
limitations.  See Perry Ed. Assn., supra, at 46.
  The SAF is a forum more in a metaphysical than in
a spatial or geographic sense, but the same principles
are applicable.  See, e.g., Perry Ed. Assn., supra, at
46-47 (forum analysis of a school mail system); Corne-
lius, supra, at 801 (forum analysis of charitable contri-
bution program).  The most recent and most apposite
case is our decision in Lamb's Chapel, supra.  There, a
school district had opened school facilities for use after
school hours by community groups for a wide variety of
social, civic, and recreational purposes.  The district,
however, had enacted a formal policy against opening fa-
cilities to groups for religious purposes.  Invoking its
policy, the district rejected a request from a group de-
siring to show a film series addressing various child-
rearing questions from a -Christian perspective.-  There
was no indication in the record in Lamb's Chapel that
the request to use the school facilities was -denied for
any reason other than the fact that the presentation
would have been from a religious perspective.-  508
U. S., at __ (slip op., at 8-9).  Our conclusion was unan-
imous: -[I]t discriminates on the basis of viewpoint to
permit school property to be used for the presentation of
all views about family issues and child-rearing except
those dealing with the subject matter from a religious
standpoint.-  Ibid.
  The University does acknowledge (as it must in light
of our precedents) that -ideologically driven attempts to
suppress a particular point of view are presumptively
unconstitutional in funding, as in other contexts,- but
insists that this case does not present that issue because
the Guidelines draw lines based on content, not view-
point.  Brief for Respondents 17, n. 10.  As we have
noted, discrimination against one set of views or ideas
is but a subset or particular instance of the more
general phenomenon of content discrimination.  See, e.g.,
R. A. V., supra, at 391.  And, it must be acknowledged,
the distinction is not a precise one.  It is, in a sense,
something of an understatement to speak of religious
thought and discussion as just a viewpoint, as distinct
from a comprehensive body of thought.  The nature of
our origins and destiny and their dependence upon the
existence of a divine being have been subjects of philo-
sophic inquiry throughout human history.  We conclude,
nonetheless, that here, as in Lamb's Chapel, viewpoint
discrimination is the proper way to interpret the Uni-
versity's objections to Wide Awake.  By the very terms
of the SAF prohibition, the University does not exclude
religion as a subject matter but selects for disfavored
treatment those student journalistic efforts with religious
editorial viewpoints.  Religion may be a vast area of in-
quiry, but it also provides, as it did here, a specific
premise, a perspective, a standpoint from which a va-
riety of subjects may be discussed and considered.  The
prohibited perspective, not the general subject matter,
resulted in the refusal to make third-party payments, for
the subjects discussed were otherwise within the ap-
proved category of publications.
  The dissent's assertion that no viewpoint discrimina-
tion occurs because the Guidelines discriminate against
an entire class of viewpoints reflects an insupportable
assumption that all debate is bipolar and that anti-
religious speech is the only response to religious speech.
Our understanding of the complex and multifaceted na-
ture of public discourse has not embraced such a con-
trived description of the marketplace of ideas.  If the
topic of debate is, for example, racism, then exclusion of
several views on that problem is just as offensive to the
First Amendment as exclusion of only one.  It is as ob-
jectionable to exclude both a theistic and an atheistic
perspective on the debate as it is to exclude one, the
other, or yet another political, economic, or social view-
point.  The dissent's declaration that debate is not
skewed so long as multiple voices are silenced is simply
wrong; the debate is skewed in multiple ways.
  The University's denial of WAP's request for third-
party payments in the present case is based upon
viewpoint discrimination not unlike the discrimination
the school district relied upon in Lamb's Chapel and
that we found invalid.  The church group in Lamb's
Chapel would have been qualified as a social or civic
organization, save for its religious purposes.  Further-
more, just as the school district in Lamb's Chapel
pointed to nothing but the religious views of the group
as the rationale for excluding its message, so in this
case the University justifies its denial of SAF participa-
tion to WAP on the ground that the contents of Wide
Awake reveal an avowed religious perspective.  See
supra, at 5.  It bears only passing mention that the
dissent's attempt to distinguish Lamb's Chapel is
entirely without support in the law.  Relying on the
transcript of oral argument, the dissent seems to argue
that we found viewpoint discrimination in that case
because the government excluded Christian, but not
atheistic, viewpoints from being expressed in the forum
there.  Post, at 37-38, and n. 13.  The Court relied on
no such distinction in holding that discriminating
against religious speech was discriminating on the basis
of viewpoint.  There is no indication in the opinion of
the Court (which, unlike an advocate's statements at
oral argument, is the law) that exclusion or inclusion of
other religious or antireligious voices from that forum
had any bearing on its decision.
  The University tries to escape the consequences of our
holding in Lamb's Chapel by urging that this case
involves the provision of funds rather than access to
facilities.  The University begins with the unremarkable
proposition that the State must have substantial
discretion in determining how to allocate scarce re-
sources to accomplish its educational mission.  Citing
our decisions in Rust v. Sullivan, 500 U. S. 173 (1991),
Regan v. Taxation with Representation of Wash., 461
U. S. 540 (1983), and Widmar v. Vincent, 454 U. S. 263
(1981), the University argues that content-based funding
decisions are both inevitable and lawful.  Were the rea-
soning of Lamb's Chapel to apply to funding decisions as
well as to those involving access to facilities, it is urged,
its holding -would become a judicial juggernaut, constitu-
tionalizing the ubiquitous content-based decisions that
schools, colleges, and other government entities routinely
make in the allocation of public funds.-  Brief for Re-
spondents 16.
  To this end the University relies on our assurance in
Widmar v. Vincent, supra.  There, in the course of strik-
ing down a public university's exclusion of religious
groups from use of school facilities made available to all
other student groups, we stated: -Nor do we question
the right of the University to make academic judgments
as to how best to allocate scarce resources.-  454 U. S.,
at 276.  The quoted language in Widmar was but a
proper recognition of the principle that when the State
is the speaker, it may make content-based choices.
When the University determines the content of the
education it provides, it is the University speaking, and
we have permitted the government to regulate the
content of what is or is not expressed when it is the
speaker or when it enlists private entities to convey its
own message.  In the same vein, in Rust v. Sullivan,
supra, we upheld the government's prohibition on
abortion-related advice applicable to recipients of federal
funds for family planning counseling.  There, the
government did not create a program to encourage
private speech but instead used private speakers to
transmit specific information pertaining to its own
program.  We recognized that when the government
appropriates public funds to promote a particular policy
of its own it is entitled to say what it wishes.  500
U. S., at 194.  When the government disburses public
funds to private entities to convey a governmental
message, it may take legitimate and appropriate steps
to ensure that its message is neither garbled nor dis-
torted by the grantee.  See id., at 196-200.
  It does not follow, however, and we did not suggest in
Widmar, that viewpoint-based restrictions are proper
when the University does not itself speak or subsidize
transmittal of a message it favors but instead expends
funds to encourage a diversity of views from private
speakers.  A holding that the University may not
discriminate based on the viewpoint of private persons
whose speech it facilitates does not restrict the
University's own speech, which is controlled by different
principles.  See, e.g., Board of Ed. of Westside Commu-
nity Schools (Dist. 66) v. Mergens, 496 U. S. 226, 250
(1990); Hazelwood School Dist. v. Kuhlmeier, 484 U. S.
260, 270-272 (1988).  For that reason, the University's
reliance on Regan v. Taxation with Representation of
Wash., supra, is inapposite as well.  Regan involved a
challenge to Congress' choice to grant tax deductions for
contributions made to veterans' groups engaged in
lobbying, while denying that favorable status to other
charities which pursued lobbying efforts.  Although
acknowledging that the Government is not required to
subsidize the exercise of fundamental rights, see 461
U. S., at 545-546, we reaffirmed the requirement of
viewpoint neutrality in the Government's provision of
financial benefits by observing that -[t]he case would be
different if Congress were to discriminate invidiously in
its subsidies in such a way as to `ai[m] at the suppres-
sion of dangerous ideas,'- see id., at 548 (quoting
Cammarano v. United States, 358 U. S. 498, 513 (1959),
in turn quoting Speiser v. Randall, 357 U. S. 513, 519
(1958).  Regan relied on a distinction based on preferen-
tial treatment of certain speakers-veterans organiza-
tions-and not a distinction based on the content or
messages of those groups' speech.  461 U. S., at 548; cf.
Perry Ed. Assn., 460 U. S., at 49.  The University's
regulation now before us, however, has a speech-based
restriction as its sole rationale and operative principle.
  The distinction between the University's own favored
message and the private speech of students is evident in
the case before us.  The University itself has taken
steps to ensure the distinction in the agreement each
CIO must sign.  See supra, at 2.  The University de-
clares that the student groups eligible for SAF support
are not the University's agents, are not subject to its
control, and are not its responsibility.  Having offered to
pay the third-party contractors on behalf of private
speakers who convey their own messages, the University
may not silence the expression of selected viewpoints.
  The University urges that, from a constitutional stand-
point, funding of speech differs from provision of access
to facilities because money is scarce and physical facil-
ities are not.  Beyond the fact that in any given case
this proposition might not be true as an empirical mat-
ter, the underlying premise that the University could
discriminate based on viewpoint if demand for space ex-
ceeded its availability is wrong as well.  The government
cannot justify viewpoint discrimination among private
speakers on the economic fact of scarcity.  Had the
meeting rooms in Lamb's Chapel been scarce, had the
demand been greater than the supply, our decision
would have been no different.  It would have been in-
cumbent on the State, of course, to ration or allocate the
scarce resources on some acceptable neutral principle;
but nothing in our decision indicated that scarcity would
give the State the right to exercise viewpoint discrimina-
tion that is otherwise impermissible.
  Vital First Amendment speech principles are at stake
here.  The first danger to liberty lies in granting the
State the power to examine publications to determine
whether or not they are based on some ultimate idea
and if so for the State to classify them.  The second,
and corollary, danger is to speech from the chilling of
individual thought and expression.  That danger is
especially real in the University setting, where the State
acts against a background and tradition of thought and
experiment that is at the center of our intellectual and
philosophic tradition.  See Healy v. James, 408 U. S.
169, 180-181 (1972); Keyishian v. Board of Regents,
State Univ. of N. Y., 385 U. S. 589, 603 (1967); Sweezy
v. New Hampshire, 354 U. S. 234, 250 (1957).  In
ancient Athens, and, as Europe entered into a new
period of intellectual awakening, in places like Bologna,
Oxford, and Paris, universities began as voluntary and
spontaneous assemblages or concourses for students to
speak and to write and to learn.  See generally R.
Palmer & J. Colton, A History of the Modern World 39
(7th ed. 1992).  The quality and creative power of
student intellectual life to this day remains a vital
measure of a school's influence and attainment.  For the
University, by regulation, to cast disapproval on particu-
lar viewpoints of its students risks the suppression of
free speech and creative inquiry in one of the vital
centers for the nation's intellectual life, its college and
university campuses.
  The Guideline invoked by the University to deny
third-party contractor payments on behalf of WAP ef-
fects a sweeping restriction on student thought and
student inquiry in the context of University sponsored
publications.  The prohibition on funding on behalf of
publications that -primarily promot[e] or manifes[t] a
particular belie[f] in or about a deity or an ultimate
reality,- in its ordinary and commonsense meaning, has
a vast potential reach.  The term -promotes- as used
here would comprehend any writing advocating a philo-
sophic position that rests upon a belief in a deity or
ultimate reality.  See Webster's Third New International
Dictionary 1815 (1961) (defining -promote- as -to contrib-
ute to the growth, enlargement, or prosperity of: further,
encourage-).  And the term -manifests- would bring
within the scope of the prohibition any writing that is
explicable as resting upon a premise which presupposes
the existence of a deity or ultimate reality.  See id., at
1375 (defining -manifest- as -to show plainly: make
palpably evident or certain by showing or displaying-).
Were the prohibition applied with much vigor at all, it
would bar funding of essays by hypothetical student
contributors named Plato, Spinoza, and Descartes.  And
if the regulation covers, as the University says it does,
see Tr. of Oral Arg. 18-19, those student journalistic
efforts which primarily manifest or promote a belief that
there is no deity and no ultimate reality, then under-
graduates named Karl Marx, Bertrand Russell, and
Jean-Paul Sartre would likewise have some of their
major essays excluded from student publications.  If any
manifestation of beliefs in first principles disqualifies the
writing, as seems to be the case, it is indeed difficult to
name renowned thinkers whose writings would be ac-
cepted, save perhaps for articles disclaiming all connec-
tion to their ultimate philosophy.  Plato could contrive
perhaps to submit an acceptable essay on making pasta
or peanut butter cookies, provided he did not point out
their (necessary) imperfections.
  Based on the principles we have discussed, we hold
that the regulation invoked to deny SAF support, both
in its terms and in its application to these petitioners,
is a denial of their right of free speech guaranteed by
the First Amendment.  It remains to be considered
whether the violation following from the University's
action is excused by the necessity of complying with
the Constitution's prohibition against state establishment
of religion.  We turn to that question.

                     III
  Before its brief on the merits in this Court, the Uni-
versity had argued at all stages of the litigation that in-
clusion of WAP's contractors in SAF funding authoriza-
tion would violate the Establishment Clause.  Indeed,
that is the ground on which the University prevailed in
the Court of Appeals.  We granted certiorari on this
question: -Whether the Establishment Clause compels a
state university to exclude an otherwise eligible student
publication from participation in the student activities
fund, solely on the basis of its religious viewpoint, where
such exclusion would violate the Speech and Press
Clauses if the viewpoint of the publication were nonreli-
gious.-  Pet. for Cert. i.  The University now seems to
have abandoned this position, contending that -[t]he
fundamental objection to petitioners' argument is not
that it implicates the Establishment Clause but that it
would defeat the ability of public education at all levels
to control the use of public funds.-  Brief for Respond-
ents 29; see id., at 27-29, and n. 17; Tr. of Oral Arg.
14.  That the University itself no longer presses the
Establishment Clause claim is some indication that it
lacks force; but as the Court of Appeals rested its judg-
ment on the point and our dissenting colleagues would
find it determinative, it must be addressed.
  The Court of Appeals ruled that withholding SAF
support from Wide Awake contravened the Speech
Clause of the First Amendment, but proceeded to hold
that the University's action was justified by the neces-
sity of avoiding a violation of the Establishment Clause,
an interest it found compelling.  18 F. 3d, at 281.
Recognizing that this Court has regularly -sanctioned
awards of direct nonmonetary benefits to religious
groups where the government has created open fora to
which all similarly situated organizations are invited,-
18 F. 3d, at 286 (citing Widmar, 454 U. S., at 277), the
Fourth Circuit asserted that direct monetary subsidiza-
tion of religious organizations and projects is -a beast of
an entirely different color,- 18 F. 3d, at 286.  The court
declared that the Establishment Clause would not
permit the use of public funds to support -`a specifically
religious activity in an otherwise substantially secular
setting.'-  Id., at 285 (quoting Hunt v. McNair, 413 U. S.
734, 743 (1973) (emphasis deleted)).  It reasoned that
because Wide Awake is -a journal pervasively devoted to
the discussion and advancement of an avowedly Chris-
tian theological and personal philosophy,- the Univer-
sity's provision of SAF funds for its publication would
-send an unmistakably clear signal that the University
of Virginia supports Christian values and wishes to pro-
mote the wide promulgation of such values.-  18 F. 3d,
at 286.
  If there is to be assurance that the Establishment
Clause retains its force in guarding against those
governmental actions it was intended to prohibit, we
must in each case inquire first into the purpose and
object of the governmental action in question and then
into the practical details of the program's operation.
Before turning to these matters, however, we can set
forth certain general principles that must bear upon our
determination.
  A central lesson of our decisions is that a significant
factor in upholding governmental programs in the face
of Establishment Clause attack is their neutrality
towards religion.  We have decided a series of cases
addressing the receipt of government benefits where
religion or religious views are implicated in some degree.
The first case in our modern Establishment Clause
jurisprudence was Everson v. Board of Ed. of Ewing, 330
U. S. 1 (1947).  There we cautioned that in enforcing
the prohibition against laws respecting establishment of
religion, we must -be sure that we do not inadvertently
prohibit [the government] from extending its general
state law benefits to all its citizens without regard to
their religious belief.-  Id., at 16.  We have held that
the guarantee of neutrality is respected, not offended,
when the government, following neutral criteria and
evenhanded policies, extends benefits to recipients whose
ideologies and viewpoints, including religious ones, are
broad and diverse.  See Board of Ed. of Kiryas Joel
Village School Dist. v. Grumet, 512 U. S. __, __ (1994)
(slip op., at 16) (Souter, J.) (-[T]he principle is well
grounded in our case law [and] we have frequently
relied explicitly on the general availability of any benefit
provided religious groups or individuals in turning aside
Establishment Clause challenges-); Witters v. Washington
Dept. of Services for Blind, 474 U. S. 481, 487-488
(1986); Mueller v. Allen, 463 U. S. 388, 398-399 (1983);
Widmar, 454 U. S., at 274-275.  More than once have
we rejected the position that the Establishment Clause
even justifies, much less requires, a refusal to extend
free speech rights to religious speakers who participate
in broad-reaching government programs neutral in
design.  See Lamb's Chapel, 508 U. S., at __; Mergens,
496 U. S., at 248, 252; Widmar, supra, at 274-275.
  The governmental program here is neutral toward
religion.  There is no suggestion that the University
created it to advance religion or adopted some ingenious
device with the purpose of aiding a religious cause.  The
object of the SAF is to open a forum for speech and to
support various student enterprises, including the
publication of newspapers, in recognition of the diversity
and creativity of student life.  The University's SAF
Guidelines have a separate classification for, and do not
make third-party payments on behalf of, -religious
organizations,- which are those -whose purpose is to
practice a devotion to an acknowledged ultimate reality
or deity.-  Pet. for Cert. 66a.  The category of support
here is for -student news, information, opinion, enter-
tainment, or academic communications media groups,- of
which Wide Awake was 1 of 15 in the 1990 school year.
WAP did not seek a subsidy because of its Christian
editorial viewpoint; it sought funding as a student
journal, which it was.
  The neutrality of the program distinguishes the
student fees from a tax levied for the direct support of
a church or group of churches.  A tax of that sort, of
course, would run contrary to Establishment Clause
concerns dating from the earliest days of the Republic.
The apprehensions of our predecessors involved the
levying of taxes upon the public for the sole and exclu-
sive purpose of establishing and supporting specific
sects.  The exaction here, by contrast, is a student
activity fee designed to reflect the reality that student
life in its many dimensions includes the necessity of
wide-ranging speech and inquiry and that student
expression is an integral part of the University's educa-
tional mission.  The fee is mandatory, and we do not
have before us the question whether an objecting
student has the First Amendment right to demand a pro
rata return to the extent the fee is expended for speech
to which he or she does not subscribe.  See Keller v.
State Bar of California, 496 U. S. 1, 15-16 (1990);
Abood v. Detroit Board of Ed., 431 U. S. 209, 235-236
(1977).  We must treat it, then, as an exaction upon the
students.  But the $14 paid each semester by the
students is not a general tax designed to raise revenue
for the University.  See United States v. Butler, 297
U. S. 1, 61 (1936) (-A tax, in the general understanding
of the term, and as used in the Constitution, signifies an
exaction for the support of the Government-); see also
Head Money Cases, 112 U. S. 580, 595-596 (1884).  The
SAF cannot be used for unlimited purposes, much less
the illegitimate purpose of supporting one religion.
Much like the arrangement in Widmar, the money goes
to a special fund from which any group of students with
CIO status can draw for purposes consistent with the
University's educational mission; and to the extent the
student is interested in speech, withdrawal is permitted
to cover the whole spectrum of speech, whether it mani-
fests a religious view, an antireligious view, or neither.
Our decision, then, cannot be read as addressing an
expenditure from a general tax fund.  Here, the dis-
bursements from the fund go to private contractors for
the cost of printing that which is protected under the
Speech Clause of the First Amendment.  This is a far
cry from a general public assessment designed and ef-
fected to provide financial support for a church.
  Government neutrality is apparent in the State's over-
all scheme in a further meaningful respect.  The pro-
gram respects the critical difference -between government
speech endorsing religion, which the Establishment
Clause forbids, and private speech endorsing religion,
which the Free Speech and Free Exercise Clauses pro-
tect.-  Mergens, supra, at 250 (opinion of O'Connor, J.).
In this case, -the government has not willfully fostered
or encouraged- any mistaken impression that the stu-
dent newspapers speak for the University.  Capitol
Square Review and Advisory Bd. v. Pinette, ante, at __
(slip op., at 10).  The University has taken pains to
disassociate itself from the private speech involved in
this case.  The Court of Appeals' apparent concern that
Wide Awake's religious orientation would be attributed
to the University is not a plausible fear, and there is no
real likelihood that the speech in question is being
either endorsed or coerced by the State, see Lee v.
Weisman, 505 U. S. 577, ___ (1992); Witters, supra, at
489 (citing Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U. S. 668, 688 (1984)
(O'Connor, J., concurring)); see also Witters, supra, at
493 (O'Connor, J., concurring in part and concurring in
judgment) (citing Lynch, supra, at 690 (O'Connor, J.,
concurring)).
  The Court of Appeals (and the dissent) are correct to
extract from our decisions the principle that we have
recognized special Establishment Clause dangers where
the government makes direct money payments to
sectarian institutions, citing Roemer v. Board of Pub.
Works of Md., 426 U. S. 736, 747 (1976); Bowen v.
Kendrick, 487 U. S. 589, 614-615 (1988); Hunt v.
McNair, 413 U. S., at 742; Tilton, 403 U. S., at 679-680;
Board of Ed. of Central School Dist. No. 1 v. Allen, 392
U. S. 236 (1968).  The error is not in identifying the
principle but in believing that it controls this case.
Even assuming that WAP is no different from a church
and that its speech is the same as the religious exer-
cises conducted in Widmar (two points much in doubt),
the Court of Appeals decided a case that was, in es-
sence, not before it, and the dissent would have us do
the same.  We do not confront a case where, even under
a neutral program that includes nonsectarian recipients,
the government is making direct money payments to an
institution or group that is engaged in religious activity.
Neither the Court of Appeals nor the dissent, we believe,
takes sufficient cognizance of the undisputed fact that no
public funds flow directly to WAP's coffers.
  It does not violate the Establishment Clause for a
public university to grant access to its facilities on a
religion-neutral basis to a wide spectrum of student
groups, including groups which use meeting rooms for
sectarian activities, accompanied by some devotional
exercises.  See Widmar, 454 U. S., at 269; Mergens, 496
U. S., at 252.  This is so even where the upkeep,
maintenance, and repair of the facilities attributed to
those uses is paid from a student activities fund to
which students are required to contribute.  Widmar,
supra, at 265.  The government usually acts by spending
money.  Even the provision of a meeting room, as in
Mergens and Widmar, involved governmental expendi-
ture, if only in the form of electricity and heating or
cooling costs.  The error made by the Court of Appeals,
as well as by the dissent, lies in focusing on the money
that is undoubtedly expended by the government, rather
than on the nature of the benefit received by the
recipient.  If the expenditure of governmental funds is
prohibited whenever those funds pay for a service that
is, pursuant to a religion-neutral program, used by a
group for sectarian purposes, then Widmar, Mergens,
and Lamb's Chapel would have to be overruled.  Given
our holdings in these cases, it follows that a public
university may maintain its own computer facility and
give student groups access to that facility, including the
use of the printers, on a religion neutral, say first-come-
first-served, basis.  If a religious student organization
obtained access on that religion-neutral basis and used
a computer to compose or a printer or copy machine to
print speech with a religious content or viewpoint, the
State's action in providing the group with access would
no more violate the Establishment Clause than would
giving those groups access to an assembly hall.  See
Lamb's Chapel v. Center Moriches School Dist., 508 U. S.
__ (1993); Widmar, supra; Mergens, supra.  There is no
difference in logic or principle, and no difference of
constitutional significance, between a school using its
funds to operate a facility to which students have access,
and a school paying a third-party contractor to operate
the facility on its behalf.  The latter occurs here.  The
University provides printing services to a broad spec-
trum of student newspapers qualified as CIOs by reason
of their officers and membership.  Any benefit to religion
is incidental to the government's provision of secular
services for secular purposes on a religion-neutral basis.
Printing is a routine, secular, and recurring attribute of
student life.
  By paying outside printers, the University in fact
attains a further degree of separation from the student
publication, for it avoids the duties of supervision,
escapes the costs of upkeep, repair, and replacement
attributable to student use, and has a clear record of
costs.  As a result, and as in Widmar, the University
can charge the SAF, and not the taxpayers as a whole,
for the discrete activity in question.  It would be
formalistic for us to say that the University must forfeit
these advantages and provide the services itself in order
to comply with the Establishment Clause.  It is, of
course, true that if the State pays a church's bills it is
subsidizing it, and we must guard against this abuse.
That is not a danger here, based on the considerations
we have advanced and for the additional reason that
the student publication is not a religious institution,
at least in the usual sense of that term as used in our
case law, and it is not a religious organization as used
in the University's own regulations.  It is instead a
publication involved in a pure forum for the expression
of ideas, ideas that would be both incomplete and chilled
were the Constitution to be interpreted to require that
state officials and courts scan the publication to ferret
out views that principally manifest a belief in a divine
being.
  Were the dissent's view to become law, it would re-
quire the University, in order to avoid a constitutional
violation, to scrutinize the content of student speech, lest
the expression in question-speech otherwise protected
by the Constitution-contain too great a religious con-
tent.  The dissent, in fact, anticipates such censorship as
-crucial- in distinguishing between -works characterized
by the evangelism of Wide Awake and writing that
merely happens to express views that a given religion
might approve.-  Post, at 36.  That eventuality raises
the specter of governmental censorship, to ensure that
all student writings and publications meet some baseline
standard of secular orthodoxy.  To impose that standard
on student speech at a university is to imperil the very
sources of free speech and expression.  As we recognized
in Widmar, official censorship would be far more incon-
sistent with the Establishment Clause's dictates than
would governmental provision of secular printing services
on a religion-blind basis.
-[T]he dissent fails to establish that the distinction
[between `religious' speech and speech `about' reli-
gion] has intelligible content.  There is no indication
when `singing hymns, reading scripture, and teach-
ing biblical principles' cease to be `singing, teaching,
and reading'-all apparently forms of `speech,'
despite their religious subject matter-and become
unprotected `worship.' . . .
-[E]ven if the distinction drew an arguably princi-
pled line, it is highly doubtful that it would lie
within the judicial competence to administer.
Merely to draw the distinction would require the
university-and ultimately the courts-to inquire
into the significance of words and practices to dif-
ferent religious faiths, and in varying circumstances
by the same faith.  Such inquiries would tend in-
evitably to entangle the State with religion in a
manner forbidden by our cases.  E.g., Walz [v. Tax
Comm'n of New York City, 397 U. S. 664 (1970)].-
454 U. S., at 269-270, n. 6 (citations omitted).
                 *    *    *
  To obey the Establishment Clause, it was not neces-
sary for the University to deny eligibility to student
publications because of their viewpoint.  The neutrality
commanded of the State by the separate Clauses of the
First Amendment was compromised by the University's
course of action.  The viewpoint discrimination inherent
in the University's regulation required public officials to
scan and interpret student publications to discern their
underlying philosophic assumptions respecting religious
theory and belief.  That course of action was a denial of
the right of free speech and would risk fostering a per-
vasive bias or hostility to religion, which could under-
mine the very neutrality the Establishment Clause re-
quires.  There is no Establishment Clause violation in
the University's honoring its duties under the Free
Speech Clause.
  The judgment of the Court of Appeals must be, and is,
reversed.
                            It is so ordered.