Religious groups file suit against CSU

[Amelia]

Religious groups file suit against CSU

Organizations' representatives claim they have the right to exclude non-Christians

By: Sam Hodgson & Erin Maurer

The Daily Aztec

In the past few months, San Diego State has struggled with free speech issues. The Campus Anti-War Network has marched through Centennial Walkway and Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano/a de Azltán has demanded First Amendment training for University Police. Now, four religious organizations have filed a lawsuit against the California State University system alleging that their First Amendment rights are under attack.

The organizations' representatives said it's their right to exclude non-Christians. However, CSU representatives said yesterday that this is tantamount to discrimination.

"The California State University system does not discriminate," CSU Public Affairs Director Colleen Bentley-Adler said. "We don't allow our student clubs to discriminate.

"They don't want to let people into their organization unless they believe a certain way - and that's discriminatory."

CSU's non-discrimination policies state: "No campus shall recognize any fraternity, sorority, living group, honor society, or other student organization, which restricts membership on the basis of race, religion or national origin, or which otherwise has a membership policy requiring discrimination based on race, religion or national origin."

Alliance Defense Fund filed the suit on behalf of Every Nation Campus Ministries at SDSU and Cal State Long Beach, along with Alpha Gamma Omega fraternity and Alpha Delta Chi sorority.

ADF representatives said they believe the anti-discrimination policy is inherently discriminatory.

"What has happened today with this lawsuit against (SDSU) and Cal State Long Beach has been a problem that has been happening all over the country," ADF Attorney Jordan Lorence said. "Where universities who do not appreciate the Christian message preached by many of these groups, will use their non-discrimination policies to throw them off campus."

Lorence said that every lawsuit that stemmed from these allegations resulted with the successful re-instatement of the student groups on campus and a declaration that these non-discrimination policies violate the First Amendment.

While CSU representatives said they had not yet been served with a lawsuit, ADF and the participating student organizations held a press conference yesterday on the Free Speech Steps, where members of each plaintiff organization issued statements regarding the case.

"This is a secular orthodoxy trying to crush decent and differing views," Lorence said. "It is in total diametric opposition to the whole point of the free marketplace of ideas for universities and the First Amendment freedoms that universities are supposed to promote."

The lead prosecutor for the lawsuit Jeremy Tedesco said that the point of the litigation is to allow Christian groups to freely express their faith, and to allow it to be exercised in how they conduct their group.

"Whether we use the (SDSU) name or not, the bottom line is, we're being silenced," Tedesco said. "The right to association applies to all groups on campus.

"Each group has the right to select their members and their officers based on shared beliefs and viewpoints, and the university has denied these Christian groups the right to do that."

[cricket]

The key here is that the religious organization wants to be recognized as a state sponosored organization. I'm afraid they can't have it both ways: separation of church and state AND state sponosorship of relgious beliefs.