The Center Files Brief Urging Supreme Court to Protect Religious Student Groups

January 17, 2012 - CLS's Center for Law and Religious Freedom filed an amici brief today with the United States Supreme Court, urging it to protect student religious groups’ right to choose leaders who agree with the groups’ religious beliefs. The Ninth Circuit has ruled that a public university may exclude religious student groups from campus because they have religious requirements for their officers and members.

In a decision reported at 648 F.3d 790 (9th Cir. 2011), the Ninth Circuit held that a public university could apply its nondiscrimination policy to deny recognition to a Christian fraternity and a Christian sorority because of their faith requirements for leaders and members. The panel observed that CLS v.Martinez did not reach the question of the application of nondiscrimination policies to religious student groups. The court went on to conclude, however, that the Martinez analysis should nonetheless be applied and held that the First Amendment was not violated by the university’s exclusion of the two groups -- unless the groups show on remand that the university applied the nondiscrimination policy unevenly, by recognizing other groups that violated the nondiscrimination policy, while excluding religious groups because they were religious.

Judge Ripple of the Seventh Circuit, sitting by designation, concurred because he agreed with the panel that its decision in Truth v. Kent School District compelled its result (which it does not), but then proceeded to provide an outstanding explication of why viewpoint discrimination occurs when a university applies nondiscrimination policies to prevent religious groups from selecting leaders who agree with the groups’ beliefs.

To understand the larger context of the case, please read this article by Kim Colby.