As the groups are extensions of the public institution itself the university should not participate in assisting a religious group representing itself as tied to the university in discriminating against students based on race, religion, creed, etc… To me that comes part and parcel with getting university funds, right to use their logo, etc… If you can’t abide by that, that’s fine. But don’t expect the state to fund you.
This misunderstands constitutional law. Student organizations who receive school funding and/or official recognition do not become “extensions of the public institution.” This is established in
Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia, which ruled that:
The Court, in a 5-to-4 opinion, held that the University’s denial of funding to Rosenberger, due to the content of his message, imposed a financial burden on his speech and amounted to viewpoint discrimination.The Court noted that no matter how scarce University publication funding may be, if it chooses to promote speech at all, it must promote all forms of it equally. Furthermore, because it promoted past publications regardless of their religious content, the Court found the University’s publication policy to be neutral toward religion and, therefore, not in violation of the establishment clause. The Court concluded by stating that the University could not stop all funding of religious speech while continuing to fund an atheistic perspective. The exclusion of several views is as offensive to free speech as the exclusion of only one. The University must provide a financial subsidy to a student religious publication on the same basis as other student publications.
In this case, the right of a Christian student organization to publish a publication that promotes a religious belief with university funding was upheld. Therefore, student organizations are not held to the same standards as “public institutions” in regards to church/state separation even when they receive funding from a public institution.
Furthermore, the Court says the university does have to “assist” the religious group if it offers the same assistance to other types of student organizations. Anything less would be discrimination against religious organizations because they are religious organizations.
And if you care to provide an example of other non-religious groups that are able to so I’d be interested in seeing them. Because in my experience the same rules apply to non-religious groups you’d expect would want to limit membership in some way that would be discriminatory. For example racial/ethnic groups have to allow members of all races and ethnicities at every public university I’ve ever been associated with or visited.
Not everywhere. For example, the Christian Legal Society at the University of California Hastings Law College was denied recognition on the basis of religious discrimination while at the same time the La Raza chapter at the same school limited membership to people of Hispanic descent.
The point is that public colleges and universities do have discretion in how they craft and enforce their non-discrimination policies. They can exempt religious organizations from the religious component if they want to,and why wouldn’t they? It’s an easy solution to allowing religious groups to participate in the open intellectual climate of the university, but many times the hostility towards religious groups is expressed through enforcement of non-discrimination policies.
