Interesting Critical Mass piece

[xatalantax]

http://www.erinoconnor.org/archives/000959.html

'Last year, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education defended the Advocates of Conservative Thought, a would-be student group at the University of Miami, after the group was denied recognition by the Committee on Student Organizations. The university took the position that one conservative student group was enough, and that since there was already a College Republicans chapter on campus, and since there was already a political forum on campus (the Council for Democracy), there was no need for this new group to form. FIRE successfully defended the group's associative rights, demonstrating not only that the mission of the group differed substantially from those of the College Republicans and Council for Democracy, but pointing out, far more fundamentally, that UM had no business making viewpoint a criterion for assessing the viability of prospective student groups. FIRE additionally noted that there are numerous liberal student groups on campus and urged UM not to impose a politically-oriented double standard on student groups. UM president Donna Shalala agreed, and ordered ACT to be recognized.

Now an intriguingly analogous case has arisen at Catholic University of America, where a group of students proposing to open a campus chapter of the NAACP has had their request denied. The university says that the proposed NAACP chapter would be redundant, as there are already two black student groups on campus. The university also says that the NAACP's recent support of a pro-choice rally reflects views that are not consistent with those of the school, and that therefore a campus chapter is out of the question. The NAACP does not have a formal position on abortion, and the students who sought to open the chapter say they wanted to do so in order to promote voter registration, not reproductive rights; they even pledged not to use the group as a forum for advocating choice. No go.

Catholic University of America, as a private institution, does have the right to engage in viewpoint discrimination when it comes to deciding what student groups it will and will not allow. At the same time, its reasoning in this case seems more than a little shameful, and more than a little spurious. It is as insulting to black students as it is to conservative students to tell them that all their associative interests and needs can be served by one or two groups (for the record, there are no other civil rights groups on campus--so the NAACP would hardly be redundant). It is also disappointing to see the university refuse to recognize an active, interested, engaged group of students simply because the organization with which they wish to affiliate themselves has supported the rights of others to express views the school does not like (picture a school refusing to recognize a campus chapter of the ACLU because the ACLU has been known to support the KKK's rights to free speech).

Worth noting: Georgetown, which is also Catholic, has an NAACP chapter.

The NAACP is threatening to sue.'

Comments

[irene-adler.livejournal.com]

"That one conservative student group was enough?" Okay, that excuse is so lame as to insult the intelligence. I'm glad they got spanked, and I hope CU of A does as well.

[atalanta.livejournal.com]

Yep, me too. I wonder if FIRE will join in on this new case? I don't know enough about all the legal intricacies of what you are and aren't allowed to do with students groups & funding as a private vs. public school.

I would be somewhat sympathetic if they were trying to block funding for, say, a pre-National Education Association group, or some other organization that is nominally centered on a particular issue even though it does have official stances on abortion and all kinds of other unconnected things.

[bostonista.livejournal.com]

Ditto.

[forthright.livejournal.com]

I wonder how much both of these cases have to do with money. If there is an expectation that any registered student group will receive funds, then one could make the case that either school would have to disburse funds for such groups. I'm sure that would depend to a large extent on what benefits official student groups receive at those institutions. In any event, this would immediately make these cases much bigger than simply freedom-of-assembly issues.

[atalanta.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm sure it's not about freedom-of-assembly. Most student groups, if they are officially recognized by the university, have a right to the student organization budget. It's definitely about money. And often this is money that's part of some kind of mandatory "activities fee" paid by all students.

[forthright.livejournal.com]

Interesting conflict, then, between the perspective that universities (public or private) are institutions whose obligations to freedom of expression ought to require them to support diverse viewpoints (including funding them), and the pure free-enterprise model which argues that private universities, at least, and possibly also public universities, have an absolute right to do whatever they want with their money, including not sponsoring any particular student organization for whatever reason.

[atalanta.livejournal.com]

The argument is often made that all of these private universities receive public funds, and so should not be allowed to discriminate based on viewpoint. But the willingness of the schools to discriminate based on viewpoint often depends on whether or not the viewpoint is seen as right-thinking by the administration ... most of the cases like this have been about refusal of funding to conservative groups. Though I think now there's greater publicity when these things happen, and groups like FIRE are taking on the cases. It's not as common to see something like an NAACP chapter getting blocked.