Look around at almost any flyer promoting on-campus events, and one is bound to find the tiny words on the bottom: "Funded by the University Park Allocation Committee and the Student Activity Fee."

Without the $38 activity fee each student contributes each semester, UPAC would not have the $2 million pot from which it doles out money to organizations for the hundreds of activities available each year.

In a case of interest to public universities, a federal judge recently ruled the University of Wisconsin's method of distributing activity fees unconstitutional because the school could not guarantee the allocation was "viewpoint neutral."

For fellow state university Penn State, this ruling is only a step closer to a re-examination of activity fees by the U.S. Supreme Court, which deemed the fees constitutional last year in the case, Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System v. Southworth.

The case, which is now on appeal, involves former Wisconsin student Scott Southworth, who sued the school because of its use of student fees to fund a liberal program to which he objected.

Like Penn State, Wisconsin's elected student representatives allocate the student fee money. Here, UPAC receives almost 600 funding requests each year and dispenses funds to organizations for trips, programming, equipment and other operational expenses.

With more than 40,000 students at University Park, it is impossible to expect everyone to be satisfied with how every cent is spent.

The Wisconsin judge said allocations must be "viewpoint neutral," but this is a vague, stifling request.

College is the time to expose oneself to new ideas, make decisions and gain new perspectives.

While it is impractical to have a checklist in which students approve of the ways they want their fees to be spent, they have to take the good with the bad when it comes to the merits of the activity fee.

Penn State's UPAC has maintained a fair record in regard to maintaining a good balance of the types of organizations it funds.

And if a student does not agree with a certain organization receiving funding, it does not validate oppression or warrant denial of funds.

As a case in point, Young Americans for Freedom is the student organization that has perhaps registered the most vocal complaints concerning the funding of last semester's Cuntfest.

While many students found the festival's title offensive, some may have also found YAF's 1998 program "Pimps, Whores and Welfare Brats" offensive also.

Yet both events occurred, whether or not students cared to attend. Each program also stirred up a healthy ingredient for a place of higher learning: debate.

However, as the Southworth case proceeds, UPAC should continue to evaluate its own system to ensure it meets constitutional requirements.

We hope that in the coming months in court, the legal system will clarify how the funds can be allocated constitutionally in a way that does not reduce organizations to dull, spineless activities lacking personality — a preventative measure essential to a university.