<p>This isn’t exactly analogous, but Northwestern disaffiliated with its Chabad chapter because the chapter was serving alcohol to minors (in excess of any reasonable amount as part of a religious tradition, such as communion wine). The Chabad are free to have their group; they aren’t free to be sanctioned by the university. </p>
<p>“Religious beliefs are unique because they are expressly protected by the Constitution, unlike the guidelines of an employee handbook. Therefore, religious beliefs are not on par with even the employee handbook; they are more fundamentally protected. Thus, the same goes moreso for religious groups who want to “hire” their leaders - they need not elect leaders who do not publicly represent and promote the groups’ beliefs and values.”</p>
<p>That isn’t true, the freedom of religion guaranteed by the constitution is a right, but like other rights, it is tempered by other rights. For example, in the workplace, companies are supposed to respect the religious beliefs of their employees, as long as they don’t interfere with the running of their business. Thus if an employer has a non discrimination rule against race, religion, sexual orientation, etc, and an employee discriminates based on their religious beliefs, refuses to work with a gay colleague, give them a good review, could be disciplined and fired (some idiot at ATT did exactly that, said he wouldn’t work with openly gay colleagues, have one working for him, and tried suing under ‘freedom of religion’…and lost, big time). The right of freedom of religion in the constitution only applies to the government, as with other rights in it, so for example there is no right of free speech in the workplace, you say your boss is an a-hole, he can fire you for it. In fact, discrimination based on religion in the workplace is part of the title IV federal discrimination laws (as well as state and local ones), the same that also protect against discrimination based on race, gender, and so forth, it is regulated by the government, has zero to do with the constitution. I have to laugh when someone who is one of the religious hard liners tells me about the first amendment and how being the ‘first one’ supercedes all other, as if the order in the constitution means anything (it doesn’t); In any event, the first amendment in this case has nothing to do with what is going on, the guidelines in an employee handbook in fact outweigh the first amendment, because it only applies to the government. </p>
<p>“Religious beliefs are unique because they are expressly protected by the Constitution, unlike the guidelines of an employee handbook. Therefore, religious beliefs are not on par with even the employee handbook; they are more fundamentally protected”</p>
<p>If my religious beliefs say I cannot study in a classroom with both men and women, is the college obligated to accommodate me? Or what if my religious beliefs say I can’t room with a black person or learn from a black professor? </p>
<p>Parenthetically, while I totally get having black or gay or Jewish or Korean or whatever student associations, I’m less comfortable with demands for housing on that basis. </p>
<p>There is a saying that hard cases make bad law, and I think this is an example. In my opinion, it’s reasonable to say that campus organizations can’t have leadership requirements based on identity (race, gender, national origin, sexual orientation), but something else again to say that groups can’t have leadership requirements based on adherence to religious doctrines. The problem, I think, is that sexual orientation overlaps these categories in complicated ways. I was pretty much on Bowdoin’s side in this argument, until I read the New York Times article. Can it really be true that religious groups on campus are being told that they cannot discriminate on religious grounds in terms of leadership eligibility? That seems absurd to me–it’s actually giving less protection to religious diversity, not more. Can the Republican or Democratic Club require that its leaders agree with the basic viewpoints of those parties? Can the constitution of the Photography Club say that the president should be somebody demonstrating a keen interest in the practice and promotion of photography? Can the Future Accountants’ Club have a statement that its president must commit to show “integrity and honesty?”</p>
<p>I thought the following was the sensible way to handle this:
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<p>If I were in charge, I would perhaps add a requirement that current members of the group must have the power to change the eligibility criteria if they wish, even if they are in conflict with the rules of an outside group. This could mean, for example, that BCF might have to decide to deaffiliate with ICF if a majority of its members decide that they don’t agree with ICF on some basic issues, but that’s not a tragedy. That sort of thing has happened at lots of colleges.</p>
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<p>The group still has the right to choose its leaders, just not under the umbrella of a Bowdoin recognized and funded student activity. The Bowdoin Christian Fellowship is intolerant in that they will not allow gay and lesbian students to serve as leaders in their organization, simply because of those students’ sexual orientation. Yes, I understand that this intolerance is based on religious belief, possibly even “deeply held” religious belief. That doesn’t make the intolerance go away. And in the opinion of the Bowdoin College administration, it doesn’t justify the intolerance. A gay or lesbian Bowdoin student who joins the BCF is treated as a second-class citizen, one who is not worthy of the rights and responsibilities of any straight student in the group, simply because of a personal characteristic over which the gay or lesbian member has no control. And you think that Bowdoin College, in the name of tolerance, should be tolerant of the BCF’s intolerance of any of its gay and lesbian members. Well, if they did that, then Bowdoin College would be complicit in that intolerance, and that the college is not willing to do. Bowdoin is a very tolerant place, and perhaps the only thing they are intolerant of is intolerance.</p>
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<p>The issue (at least at Bowdoin) is not and never has been the right of a group to choose its own leaders. The issue is automatically relegating some group members to second-class status because of something that those members have no control over, and deeming those students unfit to be a group leader. Again - and this is very important - any group at Bowdoin is free to operate this way, just without the official recognition and support of the college.</p>
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<p>Put another way: The “discrimination” issue you are talking about is the right to set qualifications for its leaders based on individual characteristics over which members have no control, and relegating certain members to a second-class status because they belong to a class of people considered to be immoral, or at least that have a propensity to engage in immoral behavior.</p>
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<p>Under Bowdoin’s policy, the groups have that right. They have always had that right. Seriously, do you think that if a lesbian student joined the BCF and put herself in the running for president of the group, she would be elected? I doubt it. But maybe she’s a charismatic Christian and a natural leader, and her fellow group members think she would be the best choice. Bowdoin isn’t telling sanctioned student groups that they must choose as leaders one type of person or another, the college is simply saying that you can’t automatically exclude anyone based on certain immutable characteristics before they even have a chance.</p>
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<p>The article in the NYT was poorly written and conflates policies and situations at other colleges with what happened at Bowdoin. At Bowdoin the issue was that volunteer group leaders refused to sign off on the college policy which states that membership and leadership positions in college recognized groups must be open to all Bowdoin students regardless of race, religion, gender or sexual orientation. The important point is that group members are free to elect or choose anyone they want as a leader, even if that choice is based on religious beliefs, they just can’t automatically exclude certain classes of people from even trying to become a group leader, and still maintain status as an officially recognized group.</p>
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OK, but the decision on whether to be “chaste” isn’t immutable, is it? Would you support a compromise which holds that nobody can be excluded from seeking a leadership position based on their identity as a gay person, but that all leaders, whatever their sexual orientation, can be asked to sign a pledge that they will remain chaste while in a leadership position? And second, would you support allowing the group to have a requirement that all potential leaders must sign a statement that they “recognize Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour?” If not, why not?</p>
<p>I also have to add, just in passing, that Bowdoin discriminates heavily based on immutable characteristics every year in its admissions decisions.</p>
<p>Even with public statements of faith, how is anyone able to truly judge sincerity? One does not have to look far to find numerous examples of people who preach one thing publicly and do another privately. (And a number of them seem to be related to issues of chastity/monogamy/sexual identity.)</p>
<p>If I were in charge of a religious group like this, I think what I might do is set performance-based requirements for leadership. For example, I might say that the president has to be a senior who has been active in the group for all four years, and who has held other leadership positions such as Bible Study leader for at least one prior year. If you set these carefully, you are likely to avoid most of the problems that people are concerned about.</p>
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<p>No it’s not. But as far as I’m aware, this is not and has never been an issue at Bowdoin.</p>
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<p>Again, as far as I know, this isn’t an issue at Bowdoin, so I wouldn’t label it a “compromise.” But if such a requirement were mandated and applied universally, I don’t think it would be a problem.</p>
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<p>No. In the case of the Bowdoin policy, this would be setting an automatic religious test for leadership, which would violate the school’s policy. If the group members feel that having such a belief is important for their leaders, they can decide to select the appropriate candidates from all those who seek a leadership position, without limitation. But under Bowdoin’s policy, they can’t refuse to let a member seek a leadership position because of a refusal to sign such a statement or make such an acknowledgment.</p>
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<p>Hmmm… are you talking about affirmative action? Because that’s a whole 'nother discussion.</p>
<p>There are a lot of things being thrown around here that aren’t applicable to the story in question and it is interesting how people try to justify their point with what in debate we used to call the spam approach, throw as much at the wall as p ossible and see what sticks:</p>
<p>1)The constitution does not apply to the public or private sector in terms of the first amendment, those are rights to protect people from the government.Public colleges raise interesting questions, because they are government institutions, so the first amendment and other rights have applicability (for example, an employee of a private university can be fired for statements they make that the university considers detrimental to their school; an employee of a state university can and have argued that because they work for a government institution, the right of free speech applies). So freedom of religion does not apply here, because this is private, not government.</p>
<p>2)Issues around religion in the private sphere are controlled by government regulation. For example, Bowdoin’s restrictions would not work in Ohio (if I read the Ohio statute correctly), because they expressly say you cannot regulate student organizations when it comes to religious belief. With most issues around discrimination in the private sector, it comes down to state, local and federal law, since federal law supercedes local law in these regards, the standard is title IV (so for example, a state that didn’t protect the gender of someone against discrimination wouldn’t matter if title IV did protect them). In general in the private sphere religious belief is supposed to be respected, if as long as doing such doesn’t put an undue burden on the company or organization. Bowdoin can argue that allowing religious groups to discriminate in leadership positions is giving special exemption to religious groups that they don’t allow for others and would cause an undue burden on how they administer their rules, for example. </p>
<p>3)Some people have been throwing out sports teams and orchestras and such, as an example of ‘allowed discrimination’, but speaking from real world experience with how universities and colleges argument, are not the same thing. Clubs are very different than stuff in the athletics or music department, and trying to compare the two is apples and oranges.</p>
<p>It is true in some schools, there are club sports (at NYU, sailing was one of them), and in club sports there usually is no requirement other than an interest in the topic/focus of the group. On the other hand, there are schools where sailing is a varsity sport, where they take it seriously, and there it is taken seriously, and the criteria of being ‘good enough’ is valid, because it is a team sport there, not a club sport. Likewise, as i know very well, orchestras vary, too. For example, some colleges with music programs have two different orchestra programs, there is the orchestra program that is filled by kids who are majoring in performance, and those for non majors. In general, one of them will take any student who wants to play, the other one discriminates, it is not open to all. In a sense, the ‘general’ orchestra is a club, so they accept anyone, the other one is more akin to a varsity sport.</p>
<p>Clubs by their very nature are an open interest kind of thing, and as such have different standards. If I tried to join the sailing club and wasn’t good at i t, and they said “you can’t be a member”, it would be a violation of the very reason for clubs, if it was a varsity sport, perfectly legal. </p>
<p>There is legal discrimination, and usually it revolves around whether it is relevant or has some basis in fact. a 90 pound woman playing against 350 pound lineman would be killed, plus a 90 pound woman quite likely wouldn’t be able to play well for other reasons (these days, there are young women playing high school football, Nick Mangold’s sister was an o lineman in high school). if it is applicable to the activity at hand, then it is legal. While religious belief is no doubt deeply held, when you are talking a college club, the question is, would having let’s say a gay student run for leadership of the group keep them from operating, and is the burden placed upon them by allowing a gay student less or more than the possible disruption by carving out an exemption. </p>
<p>What I hear from those outraged at Bowdoin’s actions is that this is special because it involves religious belief, saying in effect religious belief is more important than other beliefs and that is problematic.Sure, it is easy to say that if a white supremacist group or a branch of a black nationalist group that their beliefs ‘don’t count’, but they may be as deeply held as any religious belief. Religious belief exists in a world of ideas, and to single it out in the example in question, for special recognition above other beliefs, raises serious questions. I am not doubting that the religious groups in question have deeply held beliefs, but why should they get a dispensation? Should we allow racists to discriminate against other races, simply because belief is backed by a bible or by a formal religion doesn’t make it any more sacrosanct and that is part of what Bowdoin is doing. The reason religion was called out in the constitution, for example, was not because it as a belief was more important, ti was called out because religious oppression against religious belief had been so predominant, the experience of the Catholic Church and with the dominant Anglican church in the colonies made them realize it was important to protect those beliefs, it was not because other beliefs were not as important. </p>
<p>There is another problem with these restrictions. If a Christian group says that its leaders must belief the core principles of Christianity, and also must be chaste, it raises a question, how do they know that the (presumably) straight leaders are chaste? And are they assuming that the gay person who wants to run for office is not chaste? One of the problems with more than a few of the religious is they assume being gay is strictly about sex, they have this idea it is like a sexual fetish or interest, when gay people are attracted to a same sex member it is for a variety of reasons, same as a straight one, and if a gay person has a partner, they could be chaste. Do these groups ban members wanting to be leadership from having girlfriends or boyfriends because that means they are having sex? If the issue with gays in leadership is the assumption they can’t be chaste, that is applying a double standard, because I presume the members of the varsity who are straight date and so forth, and how can you assume gays are having sex automatically but allow a straight dating someone to be a leader? From what I can tell, the issue is over chasteness (and I could be wrong), and if so, then the religious groups are hypocrites, unless they demand that to be a leader you cannot have a girlfriend or boyfriend for everyone, it shows that it is simply being gay that they are discriminating against…as someone else posted, a gay student wanting to join likely shares their beliefs, and could in fact be chaste, even if he/she has an SO, no different than a straight student. One of the reasons that people react so negatively to the religious viewpoint on gays is that in so many cases, they treat being gay like it is a sexual fetish, rather than being who someone is capable of loving and wanting a relationship with, basically no different than straights, they treat it as a sex act, rather than who someone is capable of partnering up with/loving/etc, and is one of the reasons many people associate being religious with being simply anti gay and homophobic. </p>
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Nope. I was talking about people who, due to immutable limitations, are not able to achieve grades and scores sufficient to gain entrance to Bowdoin. Bowdoin doesn’t tolerate that.</p>
<p>I guess one point I’d make here is that I don’t think a college should be more restrictive of religious groups than it is of other groups that are formed to promote a point of view. Thus, for example, if the Pro-Choice and Right to Life groups on campus are allowed to require that their leaders agree with their aims, then religious groups should have the same freedom. Otherwise, you’re actually reducing, not increasing, religious freedom.</p>
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<p>Ah. Well, if you are able to solve this problem that afflicts Bowdoin, and every other institution of higher learning in America, please let your thoughts be known.</p>
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<p>But they’re not allowed to require that. All groups are treated the same in this respect.</p>
<p>Here’s another thought experiment for folks to consider. A group of students at Bowdoin seeks to form, and have recognized and funded, a group called “Bowdoin Students for Traditional Marriage.” The purpose of the group is to oppose laws allowing same-sex marriage in the United States. The say that they will happily sign the anti-discrimination pledge and will allow anybody who wishes to join the group and to seek a leadership position. But what they plan to do is support lobbying and legal efforts to stop the march of same-sex marriage. What should Bowdoin do with this request for recognition and funding?</p>
<p>I wouldn’t allow this group if it were my college, any more than I would allow a white-supremacy group or a group attempting to repeal the ADA.</p>
<p>You wouldn’t allow a group because you don’t like their mission?</p>
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Would you allow a group that advocated for free speech?</p>