I'm encouraged that the University of Michigan changed course. However, the same situation has been a problem for Christian student groups at Vanderbilt University. Consequently, I was wondering if what I described might be a course of action a Christian student group might take that would avoid the problem.
Brad Pardee -----Original Message----- From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Eric Rassbach Sent: Monday, February 25, 2013 10:58 PM To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: RE: Christian groups on secular campuses My understanding is that the University later recognized the group as a student organization: http://www.michigandaily.com/news/intervarsity-reinstated-university-club ________________________________________ From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Brad Pardee [bp51...@windstream.net] Sent: Monday, February 25, 2013 6:40 PM To: ReligionLaw Subject: Christian groups on secular campuses I was reading an article about another Christian group, this time at Michigan, being forced off campus because their constitution requires the leadership to be Christian. I was thinking about it and I was wondering if this would be a workaround that would withstand the anti-discrimination charge. Suppose a group has a mission statement that states the groups mission to be to advance the gosepel or something of that nature. The constitution could simply require leaders to state that they affirm and support the mission of the group. They wouldn't be barring non-Christians from leadership. They would simply need to know that the non-Christian would affirm a Christian evangelical mission. (This would also work for other groups. For instance, Campus Republicans could have a mission statement to support and elect Republican candidates. They wouldn't be banning Democrats from running for leadership position. The Democrat would simply need to make the case that they support the mission of electing Republican candidates.) In order to prevent this, the campus administrators would then be required to say that campus organizations are not allowed to have an evangelical mission, which would be more difficult to defend than an across-the-board anti-discrimination requirement. Would that be an approach that groups like Intervarsity, etc., could take that would likely pass muster? The article about Intervarsity at Michigan is at http://radio.foxnews.com/toddstarnes/top-stories/university-of-michigan-kick s-christian-club-off-campus.html Brad Pardee _______________________________________________ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others. _______________________________________________ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
