This year, Alliance Defending Freedom has urged Universities around the country to change their unconstitutional policies. Some schools, like Virginia Tech and University of Alabama, have quickly changed their policies, making their campuses safe for free speech.

Other colleges and universities, however, refused to change, denying rights guaranteed to students by the constitution. These schools are

• Ohio University
  Coerced Association
  Speech Code
• University of South Dakota, South Dakota State, Black Hills State University, Dakota State University, and Northern State University
  Student Fee Policy
• University of Hawaii at Hilo
  Coerced Association
• Alabama State University
  Coerced Association
• University of Alaska
  Coerced Association
  Speech Code
• University of Montana
  Coerced Association

How you can help: If you attend one of these Universities, please contact us at 1.800.835.5233 or online here. We’d love to talk to you about what you or your student group can do to help challenge these policies that limit your freedom.

___________________________________
The schools all have policies that violate the rights of students protected by the First Amendment.

Among the problematic policies are various speech codes and zones that place unconstitutional restrictions on student speech, policies that force student clubs to accept voting members and officers that don’t agree with the clubs’ beliefs, and policies that allow non-religious student groups to use student activity fees but exclude religious student groups even though the students in those groups have contributed to the fees.

___________________________________

What policies are unconstitutional at my school? Read below: 

University of Alaska
The University of Alaska has a “speech code,” or policies that suppress and punish speech that some may find subjectively offensive. In one instance, they say that student groups must “avoid the use of obscene or offensive language or illustrations and demonstrate sensitivity to social concerns” in their campus postings. The Supreme Court has said that restrictions on speech cannot be “overbroad” or “vague,” which this policy violates because it likely prohibits much speech that is protected by the First Amendment and leaves terms open for individual interpretation. The constitution protects all speech, even if that speech is considered unpleasant or offensive by some.

Not only does UA have a speech code, but its policies may also prohibit religious groups from selecting their leaders based on their faith.  UA’s policies ban religious discrimination (which many universities are wrongly interpreting to prohibit religious groups from requiring their members and leaders to agree with their religious beliefs) but allow other groups to exclude members based on nonreligious belief (i.e., political or social issue groups), gender (fraternities and sororities), GPA (academic merit groups), and much more. When a school permits groups to make nonreligious membership and leadership exclusions, they violate the constitution if they prohibit religious groups from selecting co-religionists as their members and leaders.  For more information, click below for our letters to the University of Alaska.

Ohio University
Ohio University has a “speech code,” with policies that suppress and punish speech that some may find subjectively offensive. In the Student Code of Conduct, OU prohibits students from acting in any way which “demeans, degrades, [or] disgraces any person.” The Supreme Court has said that restrictions on speech cannot be “overbroad” or “vague,” which this policy violates because it likely prohibits much speech that is protected by the First Amendment and leaves terms open for individual interpretation. The constitution protects all speech, even if that speech is considered unpleasant or offensive by some.

Ohio University’s policies also may prohibit religious groups from selecting their leaders based on their faith.  OU’s policies ban religious discrimination (which many universities are wrongly interpreting to prohibit religious groups from requiring their members and leaders to agree with their religious beliefs) but allow other groups to exclude members based on nonreligious belief (i.e., political or social issue groups), gender (fraternities and sororities), GPA (academic merit groups), and much more. When a school permits groups to make nonreligious membership and leadership exclusions, they violate the constitution if  they prohibit religious groups from selecting co-religionists as their members and leaders.  For more information, click below for our letter to Ohio University

SD
According to the Supreme Court, all private student groups must have equal access to Student Fee Funding regardless of their viewpoint. This Board of Regents policy excludes religious groups from receiving funding, which is unconstitutional. For more information, click below to read our letter to the South Dakota Board of Regents.

University of Hawaii at Hilo
The University of Hawaii at Hilo’s policies may prohibit religious groups from selecting their leaders based on their faith.  The university’s policies ban religious discrimination (which many universities are wrongly interpreting to prohibit religious groups from requiring their members and leaders to agree with their religious beliefs)  but allow other groups to exclude members based on nonreligious belief (i.e., political or social issue groups), gender (fraternities and sororities), GPA  (academic merit groups), and much more. When a school permits groups to make nonreligious membership and leadership exclusions, they violate the constitution if they prohibit religious groups from selecting co-religionists as their members and leaders.  For more information, click below for our letter to the University of Hawaii at Hilo.

University of Montana
The University of Montana’s policies may prohibit religious groups from selecting their leaders based on their faith.  The university’s policies ban religious discrimination (which many universities are wrongly interpreting to prohibit religious groups from requiring their members and leaders to agree with their religious beliefs), but allow other groups to exclude members based on nonreligious belief (i.e., political or social issue groups), gender (fraternities and sororities), GPA (academic merit groups), and much more. When a school permits groups to make nonreligious membership and leadership exclusions, they violate the constitution if they prohibit religious groups from selecting co-religionists as their members and leaders.  For more information, click below for our letter to the University of Montana.

How you can help: If you attend one of these Universities, please contact us at 1.800.835.5233 or online here. We’d love to talk to you about what you or your student group can do to help challenge these policies that limit your freedom.

Nobody likes discrimination.  (Except maybe when the question is whether Five Guys or In-N-Out burgers are better….  In-N-Out, clearly.)  You may be familiar with laws that protect you from unlawful discrimination.  The most common example is that your employer can’t fire you because of your race, religion, or other protect status.

But the recent movement to expand the principle of nondiscrimination on college campuses, through so-called nondiscrimination policies, has undermined the credibility of this important legal concept.

These days, colleges commonly use nondiscrimination policies to force Christian student groups to accept atheists and agnostics as members and leaders of the group.

The Evergreen State College is another recent example of a nondiscrimination policy gone wild.  Read for yourself:

A transgender woman said she was discriminated against after using the women’s locker room at Evergreen State College.

Colleen Francis was using the sauna in a women’s locker room inside the recreation center at the school late in September.

The same facility is used by two high school girls swim teams from Olympia, who also practice in the pool.

It turns out that Francis is biologically a man and was caught on multiple occasions sitting naked in the women’s locker room sauna.  What’s more, the sauna’s glass door not only allows the young girls to see Francis, but also allow him to see them while they are changing for swim practice.  When parents called the police multiple times, Evergreen responded by asserting that its nondiscrimination policy, which prohibits “gender identity” and “gender expression” discrimination, prevents it from telling Francis to leave.  Why?  Because he thinks he is a woman.

So someone who is biologically a male is using the women’s locker room while young girls, ages 6 to 18, are undressing for swim practice.  And Evergreen, a public college, is doing nothing to stop it.

That’s why Alliance Defending Freedom sent a letter to Evergreen officials and reminded them of the legal liability they may face if anything happens to these young girls.  It’s a plain example of a so-called nondiscrimination policy trumping common sense.

Yale, the home of some of the most infamous secret societies in the country (like the one portrayed in the 2000 teen-thriller The Skulls), decided last week to deny official recognition to a Christian fraternity, Beta Upsilon Chi (BYX), because the fraternity requires members and leaders to share a common Christian faith.  Of course, Skull and Bones and its peers won’t suffer a similar fate because they are off-campus groups.  But students who want the rights and privileges of being an on-campus group (use of the university name, access to funds, and other resources) must pledge not to discriminate on a host of legal statuses, including religion.  Because BYX wants to make sure its members are more interested in Christ than social status, Yale says its membership standards violate the university’s anti-discrimination policy, particularly the prohibition on religious discrimination.

Aside from the obvious double standard embedded in Yale’s policy (doesn’t denying recognition to a religious group violate the anti-discrimination policy’s ban on religious discrimination?), Yale’s move is especially unsettling given that its roots lie in training clergy and its alumni include Jonathan Edwards.  It is true that Yale may make discriminatory decisions with regard to student groups because it is a private university.  But it has renounced its history in so doing.  Instead of accepting student groups who rally around a religious idea, just as the college itself did through much of its history, it excludes them.  That is unfortunate.  No doubt, Christians will continue to attend Yale, but maybe they should consider whether they’ll get better treatment in Cambridge.

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.

Vanderbilt’s crack-down on religious groups has captured headlines and ignited controversy on campus.  Chancellor Zeppos’ recent “message” on “nondiscrimination” announced a town hall to explain everything.  At this meeting, the dean of the divinity school served as a religious stage prop while Provost Richard McCarty and General Counsel David G. Williams filled three hours with double-talk.

Both the complete footage and the highlights above expose Vanderbilt’s policy change for what it is:  a purge cloaked in a nondiscrimination guise that targets religious students who make the mistake of taking their faith and freedoms seriously.  And it is lead by people who do not understand the role of religion in students’ lives, who have little regard for basic freedoms, and who refuse to put their policy in writing.

For example, a student eloquently explained that just as it is impossible for religious students to separate their faith from the rest of life, so religious groups necessarily make faith-based decisions.  Provost McCarty replied, “Everyone isn’t as fortunate as you are to be firm in their faith.”  So what?  When students want to become stronger, whom do they seek?  People who are firm in their faith?  Or groups engaged in false advertising (e.g., Jewish groups run by Hindus, Mormon groups run by Baptists)?  Vanderbilt mandates the latter.  But this is not surprising, seeing how the Provost emphatically declared that his faith does not and should not affect his decisions at all.  That is, of course, his privilege.  It would be nice if he would allow others to choose differently.

Nor did the administrators fare any better at Freedom 101.  Mr. Williams announced that if a group does not accept everyone, it discriminates.  Actually, this is called freedom of association, which—as the Supreme Court has repeatedly declared—includes the freedom not to associate.  But then again, Mr. Williams has a strange view of this freedom, one that tells groups:  “Either you let everyone in, or you won’t exist.”  This may be many things, but free association it is not.

So what exactly is Vanderbilt’s new policy?  Well, no one knows—not even the administrators.  Mr. McCarty announced an “all-comers” policy.  But fraternities and sororities exclude people for all sorts of reasons, including sex.  Mr. Williams waffled on whether they would be exempted, but not on how this policy would apply to religious groups:  “What we’re against is you basically saying, ‘The only people who can run for leadership—or the only people who we will establish as leaders—have to share that belief.’”  Despite the overall fog of Vanderbilt’s “fire, ready, aim” approach to creating policy, one thing is clear:  religious groups will not enjoy the freedom of religious association.

This shifting double-standard irritated students, who repeatedly asked for a written policy.  But this was too much to ask of Provost McCarty, who explained that “it is virtually impossible to put down in a single document all of the permutation that we have talked about tonight in one tightly written policy.”  Somehow, the thousands of universities that dot the American landscape from sea to shining sea have all managed to create such a written policy.  For that matter, the countless elementary, middle, and high schools have too.  But it is too daunting a task for Vanderbilt.  In fairness, though, it is difficult to concoct a policy that protects favored groups (like the Greek system), targets Christians, and also appears even-handed.

However, to the Provost, all of this is much ado about nothing.  After all, as he announced to the students:  “You’re saying to me, ‘I’m making you do something that you don’t want to do.’  And I am telling that’s not what I am asking you to do.”  Really?  Then why change the policy?  Such obfuscation cannot conceal the reality.  Vanderbilt demands that Christian groups consider Jewish leaders, that Jewish groups consider Hindu leaders, etc. (thus exposing them to discrimination complaints if such students get voted down).  Students rightfully object to this violation of religious freedom.  And the University says, “Do it anyway, or go away.”

Regardless, the Provost assured students that he saw no danger that a group would be “subverted by a couple of dedicated individuals that want to somehow divert the group from its original intent.”  Mr. Provost, meet Christian Legal Society.  It exists, among other things, to hold Bible studies.  But when it said that it expected its leaders to lead these studies, “a group of dedicated individuals”—all on Vanderbilt’s payroll—“diverted the group from its original intent” by denying CLS the recognition it needs to meet freely on campus.

Fortunately, Provost McCarty accentuated his absurdity with his solution for students serious about their beliefs and their freedoms:  “We’re asking you—oh, my gosh—to take a leap of faith for one year and give it a try.”  Christians, of all people, exercise faith, but it is in the Rock of Ages, not in an administrator who articulates such a vacillating, incoherent, and dangerously unwritten policy.

He also offered some advice to students who simply want to maintain the integrity of their group and its teachings:  “You will benefit greatly from being maybe a little bit more open on this issue.”  Here is a better idea for Vanderbilt:  “You will benefit greatly from being maybe a little bit more open to religious freedom.  It has grown in these parts since the Pilgrims.  Just try it.”