Advocate for Banned Campus Pro-Life Group Says Gonzaga Uses Double Standard
by Jim Brown and Jenni Parker
December 29, 2003
(AgapePress) - A Christian pro-life group at a Catholic University in Washington State has been banned from campus. The Student Bar Association (SBA) at Gonzaga University Law School recently denied recognition to the Pro-life Law Caucus because it only allows Christians to hold leadership positions. According to the SBA, the policy is discriminatory and therefore renders the group ineligible for official recognition.
However, Greg Lukianoff of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) says it is the law school that is doing the discriminating. "Without recognition they are officially a non-entity at Gonzaga University," he says. "That means they can't have meetings, they can't apply for student fees -- they simply do not exist. And we believe that the Christian Pro-Life Caucus has every right to exist, just like any other group."
Two students at the university began the Gonzaga Pro-Life Law Caucus to promote opposition to abortion and assist a crisis pregnancy center in Spokane. Lukianoff, FIRE's director of legal and public advocacy, says it is a strange age when a Catholic, Jesuit university would deny a Christian pro-life group recognition because its religious nature is considered discriminatory.
"It is sad enough when secular institutions do not recognize the value of religious freedom," Lukianoff notes, adding that the Catholic Gonzaga "owes its very existence to America's commitments to religious liberty and voluntary association."
While a respected member of the law school faculty and even the university counsel have both agreed that a student group may restrict its leadership or even its membership to those committed to its religious purpose, certain members of the SBA strongly opposed the group's recognition. SBA President Albert Guadagno was among those who complained that the Caucus's leadership requirement was discriminatory, and it was he who called a closed meeting of the student governing body's executive board to rule on the pro-life group's application.
Caucus representatives were not allowed to attend that meeting, after which Guadagno notified the members of the Caucus that its leadership requirements violated the university's and the law school's mission statements. Guadagno informed them that the executive board had ruled against granting the group recognition and the full SBA would not vote on the matter.
Although the Caucus continued to seek recognition and worked to clarify its Christian identity and purpose, the SBA's president refused to consider the pro-life group's revised application.
Lukianoff feels it is ironic that by denying the Caucus the right to be led by Christians, the SBA is engaging in rather than preventing religious discrimination. He says FIRE is now involved in a campaign to publicly expose Gonzaga's double standard.
According to the religious liberty advocate, several public universities have failed in similar attempts to censor Christian groups. Although he notes that as a private university, Gonzaga is not subject to many of laws that govern state-funded institutions, Lukianoff says the Catholic university should reconsider its stance.
"The same restrictions that [apply to] other schools like UNC, UNC-Charlotte, Rutgers, and Wichita State don't apply to Gonzaga University," FIRE's spokesman says. "However, we believe that it's morally wrong and legally indefensible for Gonzaga University to believe, in an effort to 'stop discrimination,' that they can discriminate against a Christian pro-life group."
