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Michigan makes a problem for itself
The University of Michigan has revised its policies regarding student groups--and has quite possibly created a legal problem for itself in the process. Some of the new regulations are innocuous enough--to count as a student organization, a group must have a minimum of ten members; student groups will be classified according to type, and allocations of funding will follow procedures set for each type; groups will be held accountable to their constitutions; all groups must send their treasurer to a workshop in money management. All groups must also agree to abide by the university's nondiscrimination policy. This last may seem reasonable and unexceptionable--but in fact it poses a serious potential problem for the associative rights of student groups whose beliefs don't dovetail neatly with the university's own stated stance.
The University of Michigan's policy on nondiscrimination runs like this:
The University of Michigan, as an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer, complies with all applicable federal and state laws regarding non-discrimination and affirmative action, including Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. The University of Michigan is committed to a policy of non-discrimination and equal opportunity for all persons regardless of race, sex, color, religion, creed, national origin or ancestry, age, marital status, sexual orientation, disability, or Vietnam-era veteran status in employment, educational programs and activities, and admissions.
At colleges and universities across the country, religious student organizations have fallen afoul of such policies because their own beliefs about homosexuality do not tally with their institutions' statements banishing discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. And at colleges and universities across the country, religious student organizations have successfully fought adminstrations that have tried to deny them recognition on the basis of their viewpoint; student groups are required by law to be treated in a content neutral manner, and efforts on the part of university administrations to adjudicate which groups will be recognized by examining their beliefs--which is what the requirement that student groups abide by the nondiscrimination policy amounts to--are patently unconstitutional. Hence the recent cases of the Muslim Students Association at Louisiana State, the ReJOYce in Jesus Campus Fellowship at the Milwaukee School of Engineering, an interfaith coalition of Muslim and Christian students at Ohio State, and the Christian Legal Society at Southern Illinois University.
Michigan--which is home to numerous Christian student groups, as well as a range of other faith-based groups--needs to rethink this one.
Posted by acta online at October 9, 2005 05:56 PM
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