Good news Religion Nerd readers! Christa Lasher of Georgia State University has joined RN as a guest blogger. Christa will be keeping us up to date on U.S. Supreme Court cases involving 1st amendment issues and will be contributing articles on various traditions she has studied throughout her academic career. Welcome Christa! For more information see Christa’s bio at Guest Blogger.
By: Christa Lasher
On Monday, April 19th, the Supreme Court will be hearing Christian Legal Society Chapter v. Martinez. Here are the facts of the case: The University of California Hastings College of Law has a nondiscrimination policy which states:
The College is committed to a policy against legally impermissible, arbitrary or unreasonable discriminatory practices. All groups, including administration, faculty, student governments, College-owned student residence facilities and programs sponsored by the College, are governed by this policy of nondiscrimination. The College’s policy on nondiscrimination is to comply fully with applicable law.
The University of California, Hastings College of the Law shall not discriminate unlawfully on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, disability, age, sex or sexual orientation. This nondiscrimination policy covers admissions, access and treatment in Hastings sponsored programs and activities.
If a student organization is to receive funds and be recognized as an official student organization at Hastings College, they must follow this nondiscrimination policy… Something that Christian Legal Society refuses to do. Christian Legal Society is, as might be obvious from the name, a Christian group. Its bylaws require voting members and officers to adhere to its Statement of Faith. This Statement of Faith would act as a violation of the nondiscrimination policy on the basis of religion and sexual orientation. SLC asked for an exemption from the policy, and Hastings denied that request. CLS filed a lawsuit in October, 2004 and late last year, the Supreme Court granted certiorari (agreed to hear the case).
CLS is arguing that in denying the exemption, Hastings is violating their right of expressive association and is discriminating based upon viewpoint. These are First Amendment issues. Free Speech, Free Exercise, and the Establishment Clause are all implicated in this case. The question before the Court, then, is whether Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Religion allow an organization to be exempted from non-discrimination policies.
I see two relevant cases for this decision. The first is Widmar v. Vincent (1981), which ruled on “equal access.” That
is, the Court held that a public university could not exclude a religious student organization from using the university’s facilities. This was decided on discrimination based upon speech. The university could not justify its content-based discrimination; therefore, the religious student organization had a right to “equal access” of the university’s facilities. The Court ruled in favor of the religious student organization in this case. The Court could make a similar ruling in this case.
At the same time, though, there’s also Bob Jones University v. US (1982), in which the Court ruled against Bob Jones University for its discriminatory admissions policy. Bob Jones University (and Goldsboro Christian School) discriminated based on race. In 1970, the IRS adopted a new policy that would deny tax-exempt status to organizations that practiced racial discrimination. The Court ruled that religious belief and practice did not exempt them from this policy because preventing racial discrimination was an overriding governmental interest. The Court could rule against SLC based upon the importance of preventing discrimination based upon religion and/or sexual orientation.
There are certainly other cases that are applicable here, and I cannot guess how the Court will decide. While the SLC certainly deserves equal access to the university, that doesn’t mean that they are exempt from the nondiscrimination policy. All the other religious student organizations follow the nondiscrimination policy; SLC is the only one asking for an exemption. On Monday, the case will be argued. We should see in a few months how the Court decides.
Here are couple of links that might be helpful:
Letter sent by CLS – http://www.clsnet.org/sites/default/files/CLSvUCHastings_DemandLetter_0.pdf
Supreme Courts notice granting certiorari – http://www.supremecourt.gov/qp/08-01371qp.pdf
Pew Research Center article – http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1550/christian-legal-society-vs-martinez-religion-government-funding
Religion Nerd 