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- [Narrator] Imagine if the government forced
"The New York Times" to appoint Ben Shapiro
as its editor in chief.
Sounds ridiculous, even unconstitutional, doesn't it?
It's both.
But something very much like this is happening
at America's public universities,
where student-led groups formed around particular ideas,
beliefs, and values should be able to rely
on the First Amendment's guarantee of free association
to choose leaders who reflect their values.
Yet, far too often, administrators act more
like government bullies willing
to force "The New York Times" to hire Ben Shapiro
than like public servants bound by the Bill of Rights.
That's what happened
at the University of Houston Clear Lake,
where administrators refused to grant official status
to a Christian apologetics group, Ratio Christi.
Why?
Because although membership is open to anyone,
the group requires its leaders to abide
by key tenants of the Christian faith.
Of course, if the college Democrats don't elect
the local MAGA Republican as president
or the college Republicans don't vote
in the local Bernie bro, no one would bat an eye.
Leaders who don't support a group's central idea
or worse oppose it, threaten its very existence.
Administrators at UHCL seemed
to grasp that concept for the most part.
Nearly every recognized student organization was allowed
to determine their own leadership requirements.
The Environmental Club screened potential leaders
for adherence to its green friendly viewpoint.
The Student Veterans Association
required past military service for its leaders.
The Vietnamese Student Association limited leadership
to Vietnamese students,
and the International Student Advisory Board
limited leadership to international students.
The one group campus administrators refused
to treat on equal footing was Ratio Christi
and that had real consequences.
Recognition as an official group at UHCL
and at most public university campuses makes
a big difference.
It not only allows students to reserve meeting space
but to access the student activity fees
that every student is required to pay into.
Add to that, without this recognized status,
you can't advertise for events the same as other groups,
and it's virtually impossible
to effectively communicate on campus.
Yet, for the sole reason
that Ratio Christi requires its leaders
to hold to a standard of Christian faith
and practice that represents orthodox beliefs held
by millions of Christians for the past 2,000 years,
university officials felt they had good enough reason
to deny the group official recognition.
Why?
Well, a big part of the university's reasoning had
to do with a widely held yet flawed understanding
of a 2010 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court.
In Christian Legal Society versus Martinez,
the court upheld a so-called non-discrimination policy
at University of California Hastings College of Law.
The policy forced every group
on campus to adopt what is known
as an all comer's approach,
opening membership and leadership
at every official group to every student.
While an all comer's policy may sound nice in theory,
it doesn't make sense in reality
and especially not when it's applied to ethnic,
political or religious organizations.
The point of prohibiting religious discrimination,
for instance, shouldn't be to make the Jewish Habad
on campus organization elect a Shia Muslim as its leader.
Same goes for prohibiting race or political discrimination.
That shouldn't require a Black student union
to appoint a white supremacist as chapter president.
Yet, that's exactly the type of absurd situation
an all comer's policy requires.
As a result,
very few universities hold all comer's policies.
Yet, even though the Supreme Court's ruling doesn't apply
to their policies, administrators at schools
like UHCL have tried hiding behind it
to impose their own
discriminatory, unconstitutional standards
on Christian groups like Ratio Christi.
In UHCL's case, it took a lawsuit
from Alliance Defending Freedom
to change the university's mind.
Just a few days after ADF took
the school to court, administrators agreed
to grant Ratio Christi official club status.
Eventually, the school added clear language
in its student organization handbook to specify
that every officially recognized student group is free
to elect leaders who represent the views of the group.
That's good news, but it also raises the question,
why should it take a lawsuit to land
on such a commonsense policy?
The First Amendment protects our right
to associate according to shared beliefs.
If universities refuse to respect that right,
then courts will have to continue to step up
and remind them of their duties
and their limitations under the Bill of Rights.
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