Christian Group Sues UC Over First Amendment Rights
by Jim Brown and Jenni Parker
October 27, 2004
(AgapePress) - The University of California-Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco is being sued over its non-discrimination policy. The suit was filed after the school denied recognition to a campus Christian Legal Society chapter because it would not agree to a policy requiring the student group to admit non-Christians as members.Tim Tracey is litigation counsel for the Christian Legal Society Center for Law and Religious Freedom, which has filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of the UC-Hastings Christian fellowship. He says the case reaffirms the fact that college and university administrations have placed the ideal of multiculturalism or diversity in an exalted position on university campuses today.
"Really, they're raising that as a virtue to the extent where it's really hurting Christian groups," Tracey says. "They're saying 'Well, we want everybody to feel like they can be part of every club,' when in reality that doesn't make sense. And that's really not true diversity when we're telling everybody every group has to be like everybody else."
The Christian Legal Society (CLS) is a national organization of Christian attorneys, judges, academics, and law students, as well as supportive laypeople throughout the United States. The UC-Hastings CLS is one campus group in an association that is organized into attorney chapters, law student chapters, and fellowships in more than 1,100 cities throughout the nation.
Under the College of Law's non-discrimination policy, in order to avoid being in violation the campus chapter of the Christian Legal Society would have to open its membership to all students "irrespective of their religious beliefs or sexual orientation." Last month the chapter requested exemption from the religion and sexual orientation portions of the policy, but the school denied the request and stripped the group of its funding.
The CLS suit challenges the constitutionality of the university's non-discrimination policy. Tracey argues that, in denying the campus CLS recognition based on the chapter's unwillingness to agree to the policy, the UC Hastings College of Law violated the Christian group members' First Amendment rights.
The attorney contends that the U.S. Constitution provides a right known as "express of association." In other words, he explains, "a group of people have the right to associate around any particular set of beliefs they want -- in this case, a set of Christian beliefs -- and the government does not have the right to come in and say you have to accept people who disagree with that message or that you have to accept people to run your club who can't agree with your values."
The CLS lawsuit maintains that by refusing the exemption, UC-Hastings violated not only the Christian students' rights of expressive association, but also their rights of free speech and free exercise of religion as well. Attorneys at the Center for Law and Freedom have pointed out the irony of the fact that UC, a school that was at the epicenter of the struggle for campus free speech in the 1960s, should today be involved in restricting the free expression of students on its campuses.
According to Tracey, all too often phony "diversity" requirements like those at UC-Hastings and other public universities in America effectively refuse Christian student groups the right to maintain their unique identity. A U.S. court has yet to decide whether the government can condition a benefit, such as recognition or funding to a student group, on agreement to a non-discrimination policy.
