I can hardly believe it, but it has been nearly 20 years since the Supreme Court handed down the landmark decision in Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia and said that public universities who allocate mandatory student fees to student groups must do so on a viewpoint neutral basis.  That’s why I was surprised when yet another student group contacted us for help after a university refused to fund its pro-life event on campus.

Earlier this month, we filed a lawsuit on behalf of Students for Life at Eastern Michigan University.  SFL is hosting the Genocide Awareness Project on campus in April and applied for student fee funding to help pay the costs.  GAP is a traveling photo-mural exhibit which compares the contemporary genocide of abortion to historically recognized forms of genocide.  EMU’s student government refused to provide any funding because it said the event was too “biased,” “controversial,” and “one-sided.”  When SFL pressed the matter, the student government pointed to an EMU policy that prohibits funding for any student event that contains “political or ideological” speech.

It’s hard to fathom any college student speech that doesn’t contain some political or ideological message.  Anyone who has walked around a college campus has seen the variety of advertisements for political and ideological events.  Indeed, EMU does provide funding for political and ideological speech of some student groups, but chose to exclude SFL from funding simply because the event, which contains a pro-life message, was too biased, controversial, and one-sided.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that public universities persist in maintaining these obviously unconstitutional policies.  Last year, Alliance Defending Freedom represented a student group at Texas A&M University after the university denied it funding to bring a socially conservative speaker to campus.  And just a few years ago, we represented the Badger Catholic student group at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in a student fee lawsuit that lasted several years and reached the highest courts in the nation.

We hope EMU will do the right thing, like Texas A&M did last year, and resolve the lawsuit by removing the restriction on political or ideological speech.  If not, we’re prepared to go to the trenches and secure a lasting legal victory for the free speech of all EMU students.

At Christmas, one would hope that the only controversy surrounding the Salvation Army and their iconic bell ringers would be their fictional dispute with Homelessville and Justin Timberlake.  But for a student body obsessed with political correctness at any cost, the mere presence of the bell ringers near campus doing their traditional collection of funds for the needy is intolerable if they are doing so in the name of a Christian organization.

As our friends at CampusReform.org reported, the student government at the University of California, Berkeley recently passed a resolution attempting to ban the bell ringers from campus.  Regardless of the fact that the Salvation Army helps millions of Americans every year, providing disaster relief, shelter, food, job training, community programs, drug and alcohol rehabilitation, youth camps, and many other programs, the Berkeley students sought to force administrators to revoke the bell ringers’ permits:

“Salvation Army church services, including charity services, are available only to people ‘who accept and abide by the Salvation Army’s doctrine and discipline,’ which excludes homosexuality . . . . Allowing the Salvation Army to collect donations on campus is a form of financial assistance that empowers the organization to spend the money it raises here in order to discriminate and advocate discrimination against queer people.”

The Berkeley students also felt it necessary to publicly condemn the Salvation Army, stating they wished to express

“disapproval of the presence of Salvation Army donation containers on campus” because “queer students…may take offense to the presence of collection containers operated by a discriminator religious organization in their places of living.”

Clearly the students felt that the purported “offense” to homosexual students outweighed both the right of the bell ringers to be on campus like others with permits, and the needs of the people the Salvation Army serves. (Despite the fact that record numbers of families are requesting assistance from the Salvation Army this Christmas.)  But the Salvation Army specifically denies the allegation that they discriminate on any basis—including sexual orientation—in providing their services to needy people.  And if the Berkeley students had just looked at the Salvation Army’s mission statement, available on their website, they would see that this is true:

“The Salvation Army, an international movement, is an evangelical part of the universal Christian church. Its message is based on the Bible. Its ministry is motivated by the love of God. Its mission is to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and to meet human needs in His name without discrimination.”

Ministry to the poor and needy has been a hallmark of the Christian Church from its earliest days—well before  government provided social services.  The Salvation Army bell ringers are merely carrying on this longstanding tradition of the Christian faith.  Ironically, the Berkeley student government has engaged in their own act of discrimination in attempting to evict these do-gooders from their campus simply because they work for a Christian organization, instead of letting students choose whether they want to drop their change in the red kettles.

I think it’s safe to say that they are on the naughty list this year.

FIRE has released its second annual survey of America’s Best Colleges for Free Speech.  This year, seven colleges receive the rare distinction of being ivory towers that welcome free expression.  FIRE’s President Greg Lukianoff describes the methodology and the results in the Huffington Post.  Be sure to take a look at his article, but for those who cannot wait, here’s FIRE’s list (in no particular order):

• James Madison University
• The College of William and Mary
• University of Mississippi
• Mississippi State University
• University of Tennessee – Knoxville
• University of Virginia
• University of Pennsylvania

Interestingly, Lukianoff points out a trend that when one college revises its policies to be more welcoming to free expression, other colleges in the state begin to do the same thing.  He’s right.  No one wants to be seen as the lone censor of free speech.  For example, in Virginia, we were involved in Rosenberger v. University of Virginia at the U.S. Supreme Court, which ended a discriminatory policy banning religious student groups getting equal access to student fees and campus facilities.  And earlier this year, we scored another win in Virginia when Virginia Tech ended a similar ban on religious student groups accessing student fees.  Colleges follow the free speech leader.

Did your college not make FIRE’s list?  Perhaps you can be the catalyst to encourage your college to set the trend in your state.  Contact us and let us know if you’ve had trouble expressing your beliefs on campus.

Today, Alliance Defending Freedom is launching a new tool with important information and up to date information about your rights on  campus. The Speak Up University Newsletter will cover a range of topics relevant to college students and their parents, as well as faculty and staff, keeping you informed about your constitutional right to Speak Up.

Take a look at the first newsletter here, and sign up to receive the newsletter in your inbox each month.

ADF filed a federal lawsuit this week against Texas A&M University on behalf of the Texas Aggie Conservatives, a conservative student organization.  In December 2011, the Aggie Conservatives applied for student organization funding from Texas A&M to bring a nationally recognized speaker to campus to discuss race, poverty, and social justice.  The university offers student organization funding for a wide variety of issues and subjects, except for political and religious issues.  So the university refused to fund the Aggie Conservatives’ event, despite the fact that the university regularly funds other student group events that address political and religious issues.

Texas A&M is yet another major university that has failed to abide by well-established constitutional standards when allocating campus resources to student groups.  Readers of this blog know that when public universities offer resources, whether meeting rooms or funding, they must provide all student groups equal access.  Just last year, ADF clients prevailed in a four year lawsuit that challenged restrictions on funding religious student groups at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  We hope Texas A&M will do the right thing and resolve the Aggie Conservatives’ case quickly.

If you know of similar funding restrictions at your university, contact us and let us know.