6. God and Censorship on Campus

RECOMMENDATIONS:

Religious institutions are not exempt from the moral demands to uphold academic freedom. All religious colleges should protect the right of students to dissent and follow their own conscience. Non-religious colleges should ensure that the individual rights of religious students and faculty are protected.

 

Introduction:

Religious institutions continue to be among the worst violators of academic freedom in America. In the last year, American Catholic bishops have implemented the Vatican’s Ex corde ecclesiae, which require theologians at Catholic colleges to get a mandatum of approval from the local bishop.

The latest battleground of the culture wars can be found in college lecture halls on Thursday or Friday nights across the country. That’s where the praying and singing members of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship hold their large group meetings.

With approximately 34,000 students on 560 campuses, no other organization—religious or secular—can claim the allegiance of more college students. Nor is any group on campus today as controversial as InterVarsity. On Dec. 30, 2002, it filed suit against Rutgers University for de-recognizing a student chapter that refused to adhere to nondiscrimination rules in selecting leaders. The University of North Carolina narrowly escaped a similar lawsuit by giving in to InterVarsity a few days earlier. InterVarsity has often butted heads with university rules, but in the past two years the conflicts have escalated as colleges have demanded greater compliance with nondiscrimination codes and InterVarsity has asserted what it claims to be a First Amendment right to select leaders who agree with its faith.

The issue at Rutgers is ostensibly religious nondiscrimination, since all student groups are required not to discriminate based on religion. But homosexuality is the underlying issue. Several InterVarsity students across the country have been denied or removed from leadership positions for failing to agree with the belief of InterVarsity’s national office that homosexuality is always a sin. If InterVarsity is prohibited from banning leaders who do not agree with its religious faith, then similar bans on pro-gay leaders will also fall. And that’s why InterVarsity is fighting so hard for its right to select only leaders who follow “Christian” doctrines despite the fact that non-Christians have never been considered for leadership.

Nondiscrimination rules and academic freedom are not at odds. To the contrary, nondiscrimination rules help protect academic freedom by preventing InterVarsity from violating the rights of dissenting student members.

InterVarsity is proposing to violate the free association and expression rights of its own members. Rather than being subservient groups whose leaders are selected for conformity to certain beliefs (as InterVarsity would have it), student organizations have a right to determine for themselves what their beliefs are. A College Republican group cannot be obligated to follow the dictates of the national Republican Party, nor can a progressive organization use its constitution to force future leaders of the group to conform to certain beliefs. A Black Student Union cannot constitutionally decree that all future leaders endorse affirmative action. A gay and lesbian group cannot constitutionally decree that all leaders reject the belief that homosexuality can be a learned behavior.

National groups such as InterVarsity should have no power to dictate any beliefs held by the members or leaders of an affiliated student group. The only power they have is disassociation: the right to distance themselves from any campus chapter they think has drifted too far from their principles. It is up to the student members themselves, not InterVarsity staffers, to determine the beliefs of a student group.

In April 2003, InterVarsity agreed to eliminate the faith requirement in the student group’s constitution, while Rutgers reassured them that students could select the leaders they wanted. While InterVarsity treated this as a victory for freedom of religion, in fact it was InterVarsity that gave into nondiscrimination requirements. Instead of submitting to InterVarsity’s false cries of religious freedom, colleges need to protect the religious liberty of individual students by allowing them to participate in all student organizations and make leadership the choice of students rather than religious orthodoxy.

 

Anti-Religious Discrimination:

Freedom of students to select their course of study is a fundamental part of student academic freedom.

 

(a) Cumberland College (Kentucky): in January 2003, the Kentucky Educational Excellence Scholarship program reversed its initial decision to deny a scholarship to Michael Woods Nash because he declared philosophy-religion as his major. The state bars scholarships for students in theology, divinity, or religious education, but it decided that a religious studies major is acceptable after being sued by the American Center for Law and Justice.

(AP, Dec. 9, 2002; Jan. 27, 2003)

 

(b) Mississippi University for Women: in March 2003, officials reinstated Dr. Nancy Bryson as head of the Division of Science and Math. Bryson was asked to resign one day after she gave an honors forum presentation criticizing Darwinian thought from a Christian perspective.

(Agapepress.org, March 17, 2003; Chronicle of Higher Education, March 28, 2003)

 

(c) Northwest College: Joshua Davey qualified in 1999 for a Washington state "Promise Scholarship" of $1,125. He was admitted to Northwest College, a Christian school. When he declared a double major in pastoral ministries and business administration, Davey was no longer eligible for the scholarship because state law bans funding theology studies (similar laws exist in 15 states). Davey sued, and the district court upheld the state law. But in July 2002, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed, ruling that the policy discriminated against religion in violation of the First Amendment. The U.S. Supreme Court in Locke v. Davey will examine whether state scholarship programs can exclude theology students from eligibility.

(First Amendment Center, May 20, 2003)

COMMENT: Restricting state scholarships based solely on a student’s choice of majors is a violation of student academic freedom and religious nondiscrimination.

 

(d) Texas Tech University: The US Department of Justice investigated biology professor Michael Dini because he required (along with an A grade and personal knowledge of the student) that students who asked for a recommendation could state their belief in the theory of evolution. The Liberty Legal Institute sued, calling the policy "open religious bigotry." The investigation was ended April 22, 2003 after Dini changed his recommendation policy to require only that students be able to explain the theory of evolution.

"A biology student may need to understand the theory of evolution and be able to explain it. But a state-run university has no business telling students what they should or should not believe in," Ralph F. Boyd Jr., an assistant attorney general for civil rights

(AP, Jan. 31, 2003; April 22, 2003; Chronicle of Higher Education, Feb. 21, 2003; Michael Dini's policy: http://www2.tltc.ttu.edu/dini/Personal/letters.htm)

COMMENT: There is no right for a scientist to disagree with established science and receive equal treatment with those who follow scientific thinking. Dini never imposed any religious test on his recommendations, nor did he inquire into the religious beliefs of his students. He simply asked them to confirm their honest belief in basic biological principles. The intervention of the federal government in forcing professors to change legitimate standards for recommendations poses a danger to academic freedom.

 

(e) University of North Carolina in Greensboro: administrators settled a lawsuit for $10,000 and apologized to preacher Jim Gilles, who was forced to leave a public area by a campus police officer who accused him of disorderly conduct.

(Agapepress.org, Nov. 6, 2002)

 

(f) Washtenaw Community College (Michigan): administrators have settled a lawsuit filed by the Thomas More Law Center in April 2002 after the college rejected student John Luton's application to form a club called "Mission Christ" because the club's goal was to tell others about Christianity. The college paid a $10,000 settlement, rewrote its speech policy, acknowledged Luton’s right to preach, hand out Bible tracts, and display pro-life posters.

(Agapepress.org, March 19, 2003)

 

RELIGIOUS CENSORSHIP:

(g) Brigham Young University: new guidelines ban R-rated movies and discourage professors from using any materials that do not follow the college’s Mormon mission. Faculty may no longer "require students to view unedited R-rated movies, as a matter not simply of content but of obedience to prophetic counsel.”

(Salt Lake Tribune, Dec. 21, 2002)

 

(h) College of St. Catherine (Minnesota): campus officials banned Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor, speakers from the Freedom From Religion Foundation, who had been invited to a meeting of the College of St. Catherine Secular Committee, which rented a room on campus. After being locked out of the room by a guard just before the meeting was to start, the group moved the event to a nearby park. Sister Andrea Lee, president of the college, declared: "The college has its roots, its identity, its essence in its religious values. The group essentially calls those fundamental values into question." Several students protested the decision and held a campus rally for academic freedom.

(Minneapolis Star Tribune, April 11, 2003)

 

(i) College of the Holy Cross: president Rev. Michael McFarland prohibited the women’s studies program from paying a $500 speaking fee to Frances Kissling, president of Catholics for a Free Choice. McFarland wrote that if Kissling spoke on campus it would be ''an embarrassment to the institution'' and ''deeply offensive to many people here.'' Kissling’s Nov. 7 speech about sexual exploitation was cancelled.

(Massachusetts Telegram & Gazette, Oct. 29, 2002)

 

(j) James Madison University: Virginia state delegate Robert Marshall is seeking to "clamp down" on university health procedures and prevent distribution of the RU-486 “morning after pill” at public colleges in Virginia. Marshall convinced trustees at James Madison University to ban distribution of the pill April 20, 2003. The JMU student senate voted 54-6 to support distribution of the pill, and trustees will reconsider their decision in June 2003.

(Washington Times, April 30, 2003)

 

(k) John Brown University (Arkansas): in November 2002, this Christian university began blocking MTV from the cable system for students on campus.

(Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, March 14, 2003)

 

(l) Messiah College (Pennsylvania): the American Life League sought to have musician Aimee Mann banned from campus because she has supported abortion rights. The college refused to cancel her concert.

(Agapepress.org, Nov. 26, 2002)

 

(m) Shorter College: in Nov. 2002, Shorter College broke away from the Georgia Baptist Convention after the Convention rejected all nominees to the board of trustees and tried to impose its own choices. The conservative Convention had withheld $9 million in funding while trying to force the college to follow a fundamentalist Baptist ideology. In April 2003, Shorter College trustees won a court decision formally allowing them to separate from the control of the Georgia Baptist Convention.

(Atlanta Journal and Constitution, Nov. 30, 2002; Atlanta Journal and Constitution, April 25, 2003)

 

(n) St. Louis University (Missouri): The Cardinal Newman Society, along with the American Life League, launched a campaign denouncing a herpes vaccine trial because it recruited "sexually promiscuous (female) participants who are at high risk of sexually transmitted disease and then encouraging contraceptive use."

(St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Feb. 26, 2003)

 

(o) University of Mississippi: AFA head Donald Wildmon called upon administrators to ban a sex columnist in The Daily Mississippian. Other AFA affiliates have crusaded to get the Indiana legislature to ban funding for Indiana University’s Kinsey Institute, and condemned the University of Pittsburgh for allowing a documentary on the unionization of strippers to be shown.(Agapepress.org, April 25, 2003; Feb. 19, 2003)

 

(p) University of North Carolina: in August 2002, the Family Policy Network and the American Family Association's Center for Law and Policy, conservative Christian groups, sued the university for assigning incoming students to read the book Approaching the Qur'an: The Early Revelations translated by Michael A. Sells. The suit argues that it is unconstitutional for a public university to require students to study a specific religion. After a flood of angry calls and emails, the university agreed to let students not read the book and write a one-page paper about it, and instead will allow them to write a one-page paper about why they didn’t want to read the book. However, the lawsuit continues because the assignment of the book is "religious bigotry enforced with intimidation." A majority of the North Carolina House of Representatives voted to prevent UNC from using state funds on the assignment, one of whom declared that it was "insensitive … to allow students to read about our attackers." Republican State Rep. Sam Ellis declared that students should not be "required to study this evil."

(Washington Post, Aug. 7, 2002; Slate, Aug. 9, 2002; Chicago Tribune, Aug. 12, 2002; Raleigh Spectator, August 21, 2002; Yacovelli v. Moeser, Case No. 02-CV-596 (M.D.N.C., Aug. 15, 2002), aff'd, Case No. 02-1889 (4th Cir., Aug. 19, 2002); Donna Euben, "Curriculum Matters," Academe, Nov./Dec. 2002)

COMMENT: Clearly, the scholarly reading of religious texts is not an establishment of religion, and this is a frivolous lawsuit. For a university to give into this intimidation by encouraging students to avoid doing any reading is unfortunate. Students should learn that part of college education is being forced to read books with new ideas, not avoiding different beliefs and reading only what confirms what they already think. No students were actually compelled to read the book; no student would be expelled or given an “F” for failing to complete the assignment. Yet this voluntary intellectual activity is being denounced and, in all likelihood, future orientation sessions will have no reading of any controversial books about religion.

 

(q) University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: The American Family Association's Center for Law and Policy filed a lawsuit trying to stop the university from holding seminars and round-table discussions during Islamic Awareness Week Nov. 11-15, 2002. Courts refused to issue an injunction banning seminars on Islam.

(AP, Oct. 11, 2002; Durham Herald-Sun, Nov. 24, 2002)

 

(r) University of Utah: former drama student Christina Axson-Flynn sued because she was forced out of the theater program for refusing to say the F-word in classroom exercises using professional scripts. Axson-Flynn claims that the school violated her religious liberty as a Mormon. Her attorney Michael Paulsen told the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, "She's not asking for much here, just to change words or scripts in classroom exercises."

(Salt Lake Tribune, Nov. 18, 2002; AP, Nov. 20, 2002; Axson-Flynn v. Johnson (University of Utah), 151 F. Supp. 2d 1326 (D. Utah 2001), appeal pending No. 01-4176 (10th Cir. 2002). AAUP's amicus brief available as pdf)

 

(t) Villanova University: law school dean Mark Sargent prohibited recipients of a non-profit stipend program from taking internships that might be involved with abortion-rights advocacy. The stipend, funded by student fundraising, was restricted by Sargent because “They're going as Villanova law fellows in our name, and therefore associating us with a particular position."

According to Sargent, "Villanova should be seen as faithful to the ideal of academic freedom and to its Catholic identity, and that requires calling some very careful distinctions."

(Philadelphia Inquirer, May 15, 2003)

 

(u) Virginia Military Institute: the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down VMI’s daily dinner prayers as an unconstitutional establishment of religion.

(AP, April 29, 2003; Mellen v. Bunting, 181 F. Supp. 2d 619 (W.D. Va. 2002))

 

(v) William Jewell College (Missouri): the head of the American Family Association in Missouri denounced the college for allowing The Vagina Monologues to be performed and pro-gay speakers on campus. The Missouri Baptist Convention was urged to cut off $1 million a year in funding. The Board of Trustees in Feb. 2003 passed a resolution upholding academic freedom, and refused to answer questions from the Missouri Baptist Convention about how creationism is taught on campus.

(Agapepress.org, March 4, 2003; March 7, 2003)

 

(w) Xavier University (Ohio): Xavier president Rev. Michael Graham cancelled a production of the Vagina Monologues because of “concerns about some of the language and themes.” According to Graham, “In choosing to cancel this production, we believe the sensationalism surrounding the play stood in the way of our coming together to dialogue around the issue of violence against women.” However, Graham allowed economics professor Nancy Bertaux to sponsor the performance as part of a course, which Graham called “a legitimate exercise of academic freedom.” The Cardinal Newman Society denounced the decision, and has called for all Catholic colleges to ban the play because “This kind of vulgarity has no academic or social value to students at a Catholic college, and it’s spiritually destructive.”

(Chronicle of Higher Education, March 17, 2003)

 

Back to 2002-03 State of Academic Freedom Report

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