Cite as: 515 U. S. 819 (1995)
Syllabus
offended where, as here, the government follows neutral criteria and evenhanded policies to extend benefits to recipients whose ideologies and viewpoints, including religious ones, are broad and diverse, Board of Ed. of Kiryas Joel Village School Dist. v. Grumet, 512 U. S. 687, 704. There is no suggestion that the University created its program to advance religion or aid a religious cause. The SAF's purpose 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 SAF Guidelines have a separate classification for, and do not make third-party payments on behalf of, "religious organizations," and WAP did not seek a subsidy because of its Christian editorial viewpoint; it sought funding under the Guidelines as a "student . . . communications . . . grou[p]." Neutrality is also apparent in the fact that the University has taken pains to disassociate itself from the private speech involved in this case. The program's neutrality distinguishes the student fees here from a tax levied for the direct support of a church or group of churches, which would violate the Establishment Clause. Pp. 837-842. (b) This case is not controlled by the principle that special Establishment Clause dangers exist where the government makes direct money payments to sectarian institutions, see, e. g., Roemer v. Board of Public Works of Md., 426 U. S. 736, 747, since it is undisputed that no public funds flow directly into WAP's coffers under the program at issue. A public university does not violate the Establishment Clause when it grants access to its facilities on a religion-neutral basis to a wide spectrum of student groups, even if some of those groups would use the facilities for devotional exercises. See e. g., Widmar, 454 U. S., at 269. This is so even where the upkeep, maintenance, and repair of those facilities are paid out of a student activities fund to which students are required to contribute. Id., at 265. There is no difference in logic or principle, and certainly no difference of constitutional significance, between using such funds to operate a facility to which students have access, and paying a third-party contractor to operate the facility on its behalf. That is all that is involved here: The University provides printing services to a broad spectrum of student newspapers. Were the contrary view to become law, the University could only avoid a constitutional violation by scrutinizing the content of student speech, lest it contain too great a religious message. Such censorship would be far more inconsistent with the Establishment Clause's dictates than would governmental provision of secular printing services on a religion-blind basis. Pp. 842-846.
18 F. 3d 269, reversed.
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