Madprofessah has been monitoring
the multiple attempts by religious organizations to claim that public education institutions' non-discrimination policies do not apply to them. Today, (
hat tip to
towleroad) comes word that a judge in California has ruled that
a public law school (University of California, Hasting School of Law) may deny recognition to student groups which refuse to abide by that school's anti-discrimination policies. Inside Higher Ed reported on the story:
In the last two years, Christian and conservative legal groups have — with some success — been pushing public colleges that have policies like the one in place at Hastings to make exceptions for religious groups. Suits have been threatened and several colleges have backed away from their rules (sometimes quietly) to avoid litigation. In one previous case that has gone to court, a preliminary ruling suggested that the Christian student groups would prevail. Tuesday’s ruling, however, accepted a legal argument that the Christian students’ rights to freedom of religion and expression were not compromised by the Hastings rule.
Ethan P. Schulman, a San Francisco lawyer who represented Hastings in the case, said that the victory showed that colleges need not abandon their policies. “Hastings fought this case from the belief that discriminating student groups have no place on campus. Student groups should not be able to use religion as a pretext for discrimination,” Schulman said.
Schulman added that conservatives who love to bash rulings that come from California jurists should note that the judge who issued the ruling, Jeffrey S. White, was appointed to the bench by President Bush.
[...]
In suing Hastings, the Christian group argued that the state university was limiting the religious expression of students. But Judge White rejected that argument, saying that the Hastings policy “is directed at conduct, not speech.” He said that if the Christian group admitted any student who wanted to join, it would have been allowed “to express any ideas or viewpoints.” He added that applying the anti-bias rule did not bar the group’s members from having any view they wanted on homosexuality or any topic.
Among the numerous Supreme Court cases Judge White cited was the unanimous March ruling in which a group of law schools lost their attempt to challenge the so-called Solomon Amendment, which threatens to withhold federal funds from institutions that limit military recruiters’ access to campuses, which many law schools historically have done to protest the Defense Department’s discriminatory policies toward gay people. The law schools argued that their First Amendment rights were trampled by the law, but the Supreme Court said that the law schools were free to protest the law, but Congress was free to impose limits on access to federal funds. Similarly, Judge White suggested, the Christian Legal Society is free to hold any beliefs or protest the support for gay people at Hastings, but Hastings can link recognition to following its rules. |
Oh, the delicious irony! As Professor Art Leonard at LeonardLink also notes, Judge White used a gay rights defeat in Rumsfeld v. Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights (FAIR) to hand the Christian Legal Society a defeat in this case. In addition, Professor Leonard says that this case is important because it also cited prior decisions articulating the "compelling interest" the government has in preventing discrimination based on sexual orientation , and that this interest trumps other incidental burdens on free speech or free exercise of religion due to the decision in this defeat for the Christian Legal Society.
However, in an ominous development, the Inside Higher Ed article notes that there has been a recent federal court decision in Illinois granting an injunction forcing Southern Illinios University to recognize a Christian group which explicitly violates SIU's anti-bias rules. Ultimately, the United States Supreme Court will have to weigh in on this question if more conflicting decisions are issued by different courts, which is probably exactly where the Religious Heterosexist Supremacists (Madprofessah-coined term!) want to be.
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