Beleaguered Christian Groups on College Campuses Gain an Advocate
by Jim Brown
February 6, 2006
(AgapePress) - - An Arizona-based legal group is ramping up its efforts to defend Christian students who are being subjected to religious discrimination on public university campuses. The Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), whose volunteer lawyers represent evangelical Christians, has launched a new "Center for Academic Freedom" focusing on university students. The effort is supported by leaders of Campus Crusade for Christ, the Christian Legal Society, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, and The Navigators. The Center is headed up by Harvard Law graduate David French, the former president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE). Associated Press notes that in the past, French has represented InterVarsity against universities that opposed its requirement that student leaders uphold Christian beliefs.
French says the Center is designed to "end the illegal persecution and forced indoctrination of Christian students" on campuses across America. The statistics, he says, are both "staggering and sad" -- statistics he contends are influenced by a campus environment that encourages assaults on the Christian faith.
"About 52 percent of students enter college campuses attending church regularly -- [but] by their senior year, only about 29 percent are still attending church regularly," French notes. "[T]he fact of the matter is that this loss of faith often is hastened and assisted by a series of unconstitutional policies and a culture that relentlessly attacks Christian belief. And so we're going to be standing against that."
The former leader of FIRE explains the Center will defend students whose religious views are censored by university officials. "We're able to attack the problem with comprehensive litigation," he says, "to marry ADF's tremendous litigation resources to the huge problem of Christian persecution on campus so that we're going to be able to file more suits than have ever been filed before to attack these problems on campus."
French says the scale of anti-Christian discrimination on campus is so extensive that "there had to be more of an effort put in to stem the tide." He reports that in the last five years, approximately 60 universities have tried to throw Christian student groups off campus. However, he notes, that is only one of many problems that beset Christian students on campus.
The center has launched a website -- UniversityStudentSpeech.org -- to inform students about their legal rights to religious expression.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
