One of the highlights of the college experience is the sheer choice of student organizations one can join and participate in. From physics to chess, from fashion to agriculture, from Buddist to Islam, these student societies provide ways for students to connect with those of similar interests.
Recently an issue has come up where certain groups can no longer get certified as part of the "authorized" campus group setting.
New policies set out by universities state that "attesting that the organization has no rules or policies that discriminate on the basis of race, religion, national origin, ethnicity, color, age, gender, marital status, citizenship, sexual orientation, or disability"
This works for the most part except the student organizations that are religious. The Muslim, Christian, Mormon among a few are no longer permitted to organize on campuses because in the words of the schools involved, they refused to submit to the discrimination clause for their leadership. Each of these groups organizations have bylaws that state the president or leader of the group had to be actively involved in the faith of the group they were leading.
Because the schools have now weighed that religious based groups can no longer distinguish themselves or their leadership, and in return they refuse to submit to the standards, they are forced out of certification and can no longer be part of the overall student community.
"It's as if the First Amendment now protects Greeks but not religious folks, which is Alice in Wonderland stuff,"..... "It really is peculiar." (from the NY Times)
Despite a year's worth of persuasion and a New York Times article that sparked widespread support this summer, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship has lost campus access in America's largest university system because it requires student leaders to affirm Christian doctrines.
California State University has told the campus ministry that "no exemption can be made" to a new non-discrimination policy that requires leadership positions be open to all students, InterVarsity announced in a monthly letter. Now 23 student chapters are no longer recognized by their universities as official student groups, losing free access to rooms for meetings and student activities fairs for recruiting.
"While we are disappointed, we know God is sovereign," stated InterVarsity. "He holds the decisions of Cal State and the future of our chapters in his hands. We believe he hears our laments and our requests for intervention."
"This could be the tipping point of other university systems moving in this direction, so that's why we are concerned," InterVarsity president Alec Hill said earlier this summer. While only a handful of universities have enacted such policies, Cal State's 450,000 students on 23 campuses could tip the scales "in the sense of public policy and other university systems moving in this direction," he said.
While some campuses began the school year with their InterVarsity chapter still recognized, InterVarsity national field director Greg Jao said that the executive order applies to all schools. "Each university is implementing at their own pace," he said. "[But] we cannot meet the requirements created by the Executive Order. This will result in all of our groups being derecognized."
While the university's policy asks that the president of each student group sign a statement "attesting that the organization has no rules or policies that discriminate on the basis of race, religion, national origin, ethnicity, color, age, gender, marital status, citizenship, sexual orientation, or disability," in reality, there are often exceptions, Hill said. Greek societies, athletic groups, and honor societies are all allowed to discriminate on the basis of gender or intelligence, he said.
Even before the Christian Legal Society (CLS) narrowly lost its 2010 Supreme Court case protesting the Hastings School of Law's "all comers" policy, universities were struggling to find a balance between religious freedom and antidiscrimination. (The 5-4 decision affirmed Hastings's policy that all student groups open all leadership positions to all students, regardless of whether the students agree with the group's statement of faith.)
As far back as 1997, Grinnell College in Iowa banned InterVarsity because of its unwillingness to select a noncelibate gay leader. Later, several schools including Tufts University, Rutgers, and the University of North Carolina (UNC) also derecognized InterVarsity because requiring leaders to be Christians violated the schools' anti-discrimination codes. UNC reversed its decision just weeks later; Rutgers settled out of court; and Tufts reinstated InterVarsity but later reversed it. InterVarsity recently lost campus access at SUNY Buffalo and Bowdoin College as well.
portions quoted from the New York Times and CT.