240
Souter, J., concurring in judgment
lecting the fee that indirectly funds the jumble of other speakers' messages in this case.
Next, I agree with the majority that the Abood and Keller line of cases does not control the remedy here, the situation of the students being significantly different from that of union or bar association members. Ante, at 230; see Abood v. Detroit Bd. of Ed., 431 U. S. 209 (1977); Keller v. State Bar of Cal., 496 U. S. 1 (1990). First, the relationship between the fee payer and the ultimately objectionable expression is far more attenuated. In the union and bar association cases, an individual was required to join or at least drop money in the coffers of the very organization promoting messages subject to objection. Abood, supra, at 211-213, 215; Keller, supra, at 13-14. The connection between the forced contributor and the ultimate message was as direct as the unmediated contribution to the organization doing the speaking. The student contributor, however, has to fund only a distributing agency having itself no social, political, or ideological character and itself engaging (as all parties agree) in no expression of any distinct message.6 App. 14-15, 34, 39, 41. Indeed, the disbursements, varying from year to year, are as likely as not to fund an organization that disputes the very message an individual student finds exceptionable. Id., at 39. Thus, the clear connection between fee payer and offensive speech that loomed large in our decisions in the union and bar cases is simply not evident here.
Second, Southworth's objection has less force than it might otherwise carry because the challenged fees support a gov-6 I have noted in other contexts that the act of funding itself may have a communicative element, see Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of Univ. of Va., 515 U. S. 819, 892-893, n. 11 (1995) (dissenting opinion); National Endowment for Arts v. Finley, 524 U. S. 569, 611, n. 6 (1998) (dissenting opinion), but there is no allegation that such general expression is objectionable here, nor is it clear that such a claim necessarily raises substantial First Amendment concerns in light of the speech promoting and educational aspects of this expression. Cf. Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U. S. 1, 92-93 (1976) (per curiam). See also infra this page and 241-243.
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