Since the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, religious student organizations at colleges and universities across the country have struggled with a dilemma: accept all students as voting leaders or members in accordance with so-called “all-comers” policies, regardless of their agreement with the club’s beliefs, or forego official recognition by the college and all the resources that comes with such recognition. In response to this ongoing dilemma, South Carolina’s Republican members of Congress have signed on to a letter urging universities in the state to protect religious student groups by allowing them to limit membership or leadership positions to those who are fully committed to the mission of the group. Other student organizations should take note, because the same principles of freedom of association should protect all political or belief-based groups.
For nearly five years now, FIRE has warned of CLS v. Martinez’s negative impact on the diversity of student organizations and pluralism on campus. In Martinez, the Court ruled the First Amendment does not preclude colleges from enacting all-comers policies that require recognized student groups to accept any student as a member, even if that student is unsupportive of or even hostile to the core tenets of the group. (Such policies are not, however, required.) As applied to the facts of the case, that meant that the University of California Hastings College of the Law could prevent the Christian Legal Society from requiring its members to act according to “biblical principles of sexual morality,” including abstinence from sexual conduct outside of marriage.
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