Islam and alleged harassment and retaliation at Georgia State

Inside Higher Ed offers a detailed look at “an ongoing case at Georgia State University highlights the complex and difficult circumstances Muslim students can encounter in a post-9/11 world.”

U.S. Appeals Court dismisses suit over religious speech

After a Los Angeles City College speech professor allegedly shouted down a student who was giving a presentation about his Christian faith, the student sued and asked, among other things, that the court strike down a district sexual-harassment code that forbade students and employees from creating a “hostile or offensive” educational environment. Scott Jaschik of Inside Higher Ed sets the context:

John Matteson, the professor, had asked students to give a speech on the topic of their choice. [The student, Jonathan] Lopez, who describes himself as a devout Christian, spoke about issues of faith and God. According to the appeals court’s summary of the facts in the case, Lopez touched on the issue of gay marriage by reading Bible passages and quoting from the dictionary, at which point Matteson called his student a "fascist bastard" and told the class that anyone who was offended could leave. Nobody left and Matteson then dismissed the class.

A few days later, Lopez turned in to Matteson a list of possible topics for a future speech, and while Matteson gave Lopez an A on the list, he wrote: "Remember — you agree to Student Code of Conduct as a student at LACC."

A federal district judge later issued an injunction preventing the college district from enforcing the code. A panel of the Ninth Circuit noted “serious concerns raised by policies that regulate speech on college campuses,” but unanimously found that the student failed to show that he was harmed by the code and that he lacked standing to bring the case. The decision is likely to be appealed.

See Inside Higher Ed for a Jaschik’s helpful analysis of the issues involved, and The Chronicle of Higher Education [subscription may be required] for summary details and links.

Christian Legal Society v. Martinez (Hastings School of Law)—possible consequences

The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life offers a useful overview and analysis of the issues to be debated before the Supreme Court on 19 April, 2010. At issue is whether a public institution—in this case, the University of California’s Hastings College of Law—may refuse to recognize a religiously based organization—in this case, the Christian Legal Society—that effectively bars non-Christians and non-celibate gays and lesbians from becoming voting members or assuming leadership positions.

This is an issue that Religion on our Campuses has been following for several months now. Particularly worth pondering in this instance: the Pew brief suggests possible ramifications depending upon how the case is decided:

If the justices rule in favor of Hastings and determine that its anti-discrimination provision does not burden CLS’s First Amendment right to expressive association, the decision is likely to have a limited impact outside of educational settings. At publicly funded educational institutions of all kinds, however, a ruling in favor of Hastings might embolden some schools to enact tighter restrictions on eligibility for student activity funding and resources. At these institutions, a decision for Hastings might give officials greater confidence that when they set conditions on groups that accept public money, they will not be violating their First Amendment freedoms.

If, however, the court finds that the non-discrimination rules impermissibly burden CLS’s rights, then the decision could have a broad impact that extends beyond educational institutions. Not only would this ruling protect the right of religiously based groups, like the Christian Legal Society, to receive support at places like Hastings, it might also allow groups that discriminate based on other criteria, such as race or gender, to gain equal access to public forums. Furthermore, if the court extends the reach of this decision to all government funding programs (as opposed to only those, like the one at Hastings, that concern public forums for speech) then its potential impact would be very significant. Such a ruling could lead to dramatic changes in this area of law by inviting courts to much more thoroughly scrutinize the conditions that accompany government aid programs, ranging from public welfare funding to higher education scholarships.

College modifies policy banning facial veil, now allows veil for religious reasons

Inside Higher Ed does a fine job (here, here, and here) tracing the controversy surrounding a ban on “any head covering that obscures a student’s face…either on campus or at clinical sites” introduced in December by the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences. The security policy initially had an exemption only for “medical reasons.” After a federal civil liberties complaint and extensively publicity, the College added a religious exemption.

The second and third posts offer sufficient background and detail to undergird a useful campus conversation. Recommended reading.

Air Force Academy Says Religious Tolerance Has Improved at Academy

Academy officials say that religious tolerance has improved dramatically since reports five years ago that evangelical Christians harassed cadets who did not share their beliefs. The chief critics agree.

"This is the first time we feel positive about things there," said Mikey Weinstein, founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, which battled the academy in court over claims that evangelicals at the school were imposing their views on others.

The academy superintendent, Air Force Lt. Gen. Michael Gould, says the improvements are the result of a topdown campaign to foster respect and a commitment to accommodate all cadets, even nonbelievers and an "Earth-centered" religious group that needed a place for a stone circle so it could worship outdoors.

The story reports on a new Cadet Interfaith Council that tries to be proactive about meeting the religious needs of cadets and maintaining a supportive atmosphere on campus. It also offers background both on the earlier charges and on the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, which was formed to combat the alleged harassment.

[The Associated Press via The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, Religion News]

Christian Group to Defend Expression of Socially Conservative or Religious Views on Campus

The Alliance Defense Fund, a non-profit Christian organization, is undertaking a special initiative to defend against what it sees as widespread and unconstitutional restrictions on free speech at public colleges.

That organization, the non-profit Alliance Defense Fund, is now undertaking a special campaign on a familiar front of the culture wars. Armed with a $9.2 million donation from an anonymous family plus its own matching funds, the group is stepping up efforts to combat what it says is widespread and unconstitutional censorship at public colleges.

With an estimated three years of funding, the University Project, as it is called, will deploy more attorneys to defend students or student groups that feel they are being prevented from expressing socially conservative or religious views.

The article in The Arizona Republic describes some of the currently active cases, interviews several supporters and critics, and gives useful information for evaluating the effort.

[The Arizona Republic via The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, Religion News]

Conservative Christian group contests free speech codes in Texas

A report by Gene Trainor in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram begins,

A national conservative Christian group is calling on several area colleges and universities to drop or change their free speech and expression rules because they could discourage students from voicing opinions about religious beliefs and other issues.

The Alliance Defense Fund Center for Academic Freedom, based in Scottsdale, Ariz., has given what it calls "red lights" to 14 Texas schools, including Texas Christian and Texas Woman’s universities, the University of North Texas, the University of Texas at Arlington and Tarrant County College South Campus. The University of Texas at Austin and Rice and Texas A&M universities were also named as part of a national campaign.

Red lights indicate that the organization considers a school’s free speech codes unconstitutional and unfriendly to free speech, said Greg Scott, the group’s national media relations director.

The particular significance of this story for religion on campus lies in the Defense Fund’s central concerns:

ADF strives to see an America whose laws affirm religious liberty, protect life from conception to natural death, defend the family, and preserve marriage as being between one man and one woman.

[Fort Worth Star-Telegram via Pew Forum on Religion and Politics: Religion News]

American Council of Trustees and Alumni: “Academic Freedom” and “Intellectual Diversity”

In June, 2009, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) issued a white paper entitled “Protecting the Free Exchange of Ideas: How Trustees Can Advance Intellectual Diversity on Campus.” ACTA and its white paper are deeply concerned with combating “political intolerance and the abuse of academic freedom on campus” and with addressing what is described as a “remarkable level of [political and ideological] uniformity” and a “decided one-sidedness” among the professorate.

While a professor may hold strong beliefs and still be a responsible scholar and a fair teacher, it is important to acknowledge that politically homogeneous faculties are intellectually compromised faculties. Espousing nearly uniform political opinions, they predictably lack the variety of outlooks and varied intellectual interests that challenge and sharpen individuals of all political stripes. [p. 5]

The white paper urges trustees to take the lead in preserving “intellectual diversity” and commends ten “best practices” for trustees to promote.

Worth discussing with faculty colleagues:

• The potential threat to academic freedom is tacitly acknowledged by how ACTA constructs its argument for “intellectual diversity” and trustee involvement but never directly confronted. What are the trade-offs as you see it?
• The thrust of the white paper is largely political but could easily, and perhaps disturbingly,  be extended to “religious intolerance” or to the “imbalance” in favor of “secular opinions” found in most universities. What would you think of such an extension?

[Next week I begin a series on academic freedom in America. We’ll return to the ACTA white paper and the call for “intellectual diversity” towards the end of that series.]

Does the stimulus package threaten religious activity on campus?

The economic stimulus package signed into law on February 17 authorizes states to fund the repair of building on public and private campuses. But the legislation prohibits schools from using funds to improve buildings that are “used for sectarian instruction or religious worship,” or those “in which a substantial portion of the functions of the facilities are subsumed in a religious mission.” This has touched off something of an uproar among those worried about religion on campus.

Habitual reticence?

John Schwenkler, contributing to The American Scene, passes on a “quasi-liveblog” of a debate between Alvin Plantinga and Daniel Dennet.

Unfortunately, it sounds like the two philosophers did not get beyond the conventional exchange of put-downs and caricatures of each other’s position.

Worth pondering, however, is what Schwenkler has to say about the blogger’s desire to remain anonymous for fear that knowledge of sympathies for Plantinga would damage his career as an analytic philosopher.