Benner v. Oswald, 592 F.2d 174 (3d Cir. 1974), was a case about the voting rights of undergraduate students at a public American university.

Facts

The board of trustees for the Pennsylvania State University was selected through a process involving several groups aside from the state executive branch (the governor

Governor

A governor is a governing official, usually the executive of a non-sovereign level of government, ranking under the head of state...

) and the university. The groups included a society of the alumni of the university and local agricultural and industrial societies of Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...

. A group of undergraduate students at the university sued desiring to be involved in the selection process for some of those seats currently selected through the society elections.

Issue

The question presented by this case was whether the Equal Protection Clause

Equal Protection Clause

The Equal Protection Clause, part of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, provides that "no state shall ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws"...

 of the Fourteenth Amendment

Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution

The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments.Its Citizenship Clause provides a broad definition of citizenship that overruled the Dred Scott v...

 to the U.S. Constitution requires that undergraduate students be allowed to participate in the election of the Pennsylvania State University board of trustee

Trustee

Trustee is a legal term which, in its broadest sense, can refer to any person who holds property, authority, or a position of trust or responsibility for the benefit of another...

s—thereby allowing them to have a voice in the board's makeup.

Holding

The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, the court held, did not require the undergraduate students be allowed to participate in the selection of the board of trustees. The court ruled that the selection process for the board does "serve important governmental objective" and is "substantially related to the achievement of those objectives". The court decided the election of members of the board of trustees was not equivalent to general elections and the issues addressed in Kramer v. Union School District

Kramer v. Union School District

Kramer v. Union School District, 395 U.S. 621 was a United States Supreme Court decision in which a childless bachelor living with his parents in the Union School District challenged Section 2012 of the New York Education Law which stated that voters for school district elections must own or lease...

and Hadley v. Junior College District of Kansas City were not germane. The court also reviewed whether the selection process was reasonable, and decided that it was, as the university sprang from "a land grant college committed to the teaching of agriculture

Agriculture

Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...

 and the mechanic arts

Mechanic arts

Mechanic arts is an obsolete and archaic term. In the medieval period, the Seven Mechanical Arts were intended as a complement to the Seven Liberal Arts, and consisted of weaving, blacksmithing, war, navigation, agriculture, hunting, medicine, and the ars theatrica. In the 19th century it referred...

."