One more item about the Christian Legal Society v. Martinez case: Some people argue that applying nondiscrimination conditions to student religious groups (alongside other groups) as a condition of funding violates the underlying purpose of the benefit program. Universities say they fund and provide space for student groups to “facilitat[e] the free and open exchange […]
Archive | Freedom of Speech at Colleges and Universities
Why No-Discrimination-Based-on-Religion Conditions for Government Benefits Aren’t Viewpoint-Discriminatory
By Eugene Volokh on December 11, 2009 1:09 am in Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Speech at Colleges and Universities, Religion and the Law
David and others have argued that university policies that deny benefits to groups that discriminate based on religion are unconstitutionally based on the groups’ viewpoint, when applied to religious groups. Other groups, the argument goes, are allowed to exclude people who don’t share the group’s ideology: The environmentalist group may exclude anti-environmentalists, and the gun […]
No Duty To Subsidize Student Groups’ Discriminatory Officer and Member Selection Decisions
By Eugene Volokh on December 8, 2009 2:31 am in Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Speech at Colleges and Universities, Religion and the Law, Religious Freedom
The Court has agreed to hear Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, and to decide whether public universities may open up various student group benefits — funding, access to classrooms, and the like — only to groups that don’t discriminate based on race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, and the like. 1. To begin with, I should […]
Ideological Groups Being Taken Over by Those Hostile to the Underlying Ideology
By Eugene Volokh on December 8, 2009 12:42 am in Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Speech at Colleges and Universities, Religion and the Law, Religious Freedom
A commenter (Tim) on an earlier thread raised an important objection to rules that bar religious discrimination by campus groups (including religious groups): Imagine that anyone, regardless of religious belief, were allowed to become voting members of the “Christian Legal Society” or the “Muslim Students’ Association” or any other such group. What would stop people […]
Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Expressive Association / Government Benefits Case
By Eugene Volokh on December 7, 2009 10:18 am in Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Speech at Colleges and Universities, Religion and the Law, Religious Freedom, Uncategorized
The case is Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, and it could be an important decision on First Amendment law and government benefits more broadly. Its implications would quite likely also extend beyond on-campus student groups and also apply to tax exemptions and various other such schemes. I’ve written about the question in my Freedom of […]
Purdue Resists Calls for Firing Professor for Anti-Homosexuality Blog Post
From the Indianapolis Star, discussing this blog post (my backup version is here): Some have called for [Purdue University professor] Bert Chapman to resign or be fired for his Oct. 27 posting, which laid out an argument that the cost for AIDS research and treatment should factor into the national debate over the acceptance of […]
Publishing a Misogynistic Student Newspaper Column = Sexual Harassment?
By Eugene Volokh on November 16, 2009 5:08 pm in Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Speech at Colleges and Universities
From the Connecticut Post, apparently discussing this column (my backup version is here): … The Fairfield Mirror …[, an] independent student publication[,] faces harassment charges before the school’s Student Conduct Board…. The controversy erupted over a satirical column in the Sept. 30 edition of The Mirror that poked fun at female students who agree to […]
Rare Case Involving Restrictions on In-Class Speech at a University
By Eugene Volokh on November 5, 2009 1:29 pm in Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Speech at Colleges and Universities
Most of the university student speech debate has focused (rightly, in my view) on restrictions that apply to student speech outside class — in student conversations, demonstrations, newspapers, flyers, and so on. But Harrell v. Southern Oregon University (Oct. 30) involves in-class speech, albeit in an online classroom. (Here’s the magistrate judge’s decision, which the […]
They Judged the Cartoons, but Did Not Read the Book
By Jonathan H. Adler on October 26, 2009 11:24 am in Academia, Freedom of Speech at Colleges and Universities
This morning NPR ran a story on Yale University’s decision to force the Yale University Press to remove all depictions of the prophet Muhammed, including several controversial Danish cartoons, from Jytte Klausen’s book The Cartoons that Shook the World. As had already been reported, the University’s decision was based, in part, on various outside experts […]
Peter Berkowitz on Academics and Free Speech
By Kenneth Anderson on October 17, 2009 7:27 pm in Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Speech at Colleges and Universities
Peter Berkowitz takes up the argument over Yale and, by extension, the rest of the American academy, concerning Yale University Press’s shameful censorship of a book on the Muhammed cartoons – with his usual careful argumentation and coherence. Kudos to Peter; here in the WSJ.
“Pittsburgh-Area College Allows Student to Advocate for Concealed Carry on Campus, Abandons Repressive Policy”:
So reports the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, discussing the case we blogged about in May. Here are some excerpts from FIRE’s summary; there are more details, and pointers to the relevant documents, here: [A] student threatened with punishment for attempting to form a gun-rights group at Community College of Allegheny County (CCAC) is […]