The Volokh Conspiracy

According to an AP story,

American Gold Star Mothers Inc. [which apparently accepts for membership American citizens who are mothers of American soldiers who died in action] has rejected [Ligaya] Lagman, a Filipino, for membership because -— though a permanent resident and a taxpayer -— she is not a U.S. citizen.

"There's nothing we can do because that's what our organization says: You have to be an American citizen," national President Ann Herd said Thursday. "We can't go changing the rules every time the wind blows." . . .

Rules are rules! They were obviously handed down at Mt. Sinai. Or by the Founding Fathers. Or by Congress. Or, wait, maybe they're just something that our predecessors came up with, and that we are entitled to change. (My understanding is that nearly all such organizations indeed have the power to change their bylaws.)

So forget about the rules are rules, and explain why this is a good rule. It's not an obviously ridiculous rule: Citizenship says something about a person, and a group that's set up in part to foster patriotic love of the U.S. may understandably want to limit its membership to U.S. citizens. Plus of course it's not like denying Lagman membership would be a vast harm to her.

Yet it strikes me as something of a mean-spirited rule nonetheless. This is a mother of someone who died fighting for the U.S.; she lives in the U.S.; she wants to join an organization that honors soldiers who died fighting for the U.S. (the story suggests that the person who nominated her may be more interested in getting the organization to change its rules, but I have no reason to doubt that the mother sincerely sympathizes with the views of the organization). It's not like changing the rules will let some horde of furriners will overwhelm the organization and turn it to nefarious purposes. Would it kill them to include women like Ms. Lagman, women with whom they have far more in common than they have differences?

But in any event, if they want to defend their position, it seems to me that they should defend it on the merits, rather than appealing to The Rules.

UPDATE: A couple of readers argue that the group is a private group (which it is, despite its federal charter, which really doesn't give it much by way of special benefits beyond what other nonprofit corporations have), and should be free to set whatever rules it wants, and also free to decline to defend them substantively. I agree entirely; and the rest of us are free to criticize them.

	[Eugene Volokh, May 28, 2005 at 4:00am] Trackbacks Huh? According to an AP story, American Gold Star Mothers Inc. [which apparently accepts for membership American citizens who are mothers of American soldiers who died in action] has rejected [Ligaya] Lagman, a Filipino, for membership because -— though a permanent resident and a taxpayer -— she is not a U.S. citizen. "There's nothing we can do because that's what our organization says: You have to be an American citizen," national President Ann Herd said Thursday. "We can't go changing the rules every time the wind blows." . . . Rules are rules! They were obviously handed down at Mt. Sinai. Or by the Founding Fathers. Or by Congress. Or, wait, maybe they're just something that our predecessors came up with, and that we are entitled to change. (My understanding is that nearly all such organizations indeed have the power to change their bylaws.) So forget about the rules are rules, and explain why this is a good rule. It's not an obviously ridiculous rule: Citizenship says something about a person, and a group that's set up in part to foster patriotic love of the U.S. may understandably want to limit its membership to U.S. citizens. Plus of course it's not like denying Lagman membership would be a vast harm to her. Yet it strikes me as something of a mean-spirited rule nonetheless. This is a mother of someone who died fighting for the U.S.; she lives in the U.S.; she wants to join an organization that honors soldiers who died fighting for the U.S. (the story suggests that the person who nominated her may be more interested in getting the organization to change its rules, but I have no reason to doubt that the mother sincerely sympathizes with the views of the organization). It's not like changing the rules will let some horde of furriners will overwhelm the organization and turn it to nefarious purposes. Would it kill them to include women like Ms. Lagman, women with whom they have far more in common than they have differences? But in any event, if they want to defend their position, it seems to me that they should defend it on the merits, rather than appealing to The Rules. UPDATE: A couple of readers argue that the group is a private group (which it is, despite its federal charter, which really doesn't give it much by way of special benefits beyond what other nonprofit corporations have), and should be free to set whatever rules it wants, and also free to decline to defend them substantively. I agree entirely; and the rest of us are free to criticize them.