Vanderbilt University Christians: Why Can’t We Discriminate?

Political correctness run amok! What’s wrong with special interest groups limiting their membership to people with that special interest? Otherwise why meet? I’m with the religious kids on this one . . .

The idea isn’t completely crazy. When I was an undergrad at Yale there was some discussion by members of some political groups (all over the political spectrum) of trying to pull that sort of stunt. I don’t think anyone every did it though. 

Regarding not being surprised- actually, I’m surprised that only 4/12 were Christian groups. I would have guessed a majority of the groups in question would have been Christian. 

Is it only Christian groups that were defending a discriminatory policy?  There were 7 nonreligious groups.

Can anybody find out what those 12 groups are, and whether they have / have not changed their constitutions since the issue arose?

Jesus would surely agree with their exclusionary tactics. Oh wait…

Well when you believe in dumb-ass crap like the Anti-Christ you can see where they might get a bit antsy. After all, the A-C is supposed to be all likeable and charming, talking about peace, eventually becoming a world leader. Same thing but on a bigger scale. 

Who’s to say the old A-C wouldn’t do a dry run at some college Christian group before bringing out his a-game on the world stage.Think about it. 😉

The problem is that registered college organizations receive money from student government for operating fees, which are paid by all students in their tuition. Students should not be required to support any organization that doesn’t allow them full membership opportunities IN ANY WAY. 

The only possible problem that I see with this is that Vandy is a “private” university so they may have some sort of legal backing for their argument. But that doesn’t make it right.

Rebel’s right. Vandy’s not saying “these groups can’t exist,” but rather “we won’t officially sanction and fund these groups if you violate our policy.” Vandy’s policies were probably in place when these groups’ rules were written.

As a private college, Vandy does have substantial leeway in what groups it chooses to endorse, so kudos to them for having such a sensible attitude about it.

Private schools that accept students who use federal student loans and other government-backed financial aid have to abide by the same non-discrimination laws as public universities. 

As I recall, there are a very few (and very small) exceptions, and they blow their own horns loudly on that topic, such as Hillsdale College in Michigan.

One problem with this is that students who join non-officially sanctioned groups are still forced to fund the officially-sanctioned groups.  In effect, the university takes their money and requires them to become officially-sanctioned in order to get their own money back, but then claims the right to dictate how their group can operate because the university is letting the members use their own money.

Some student groups are allowed to restrict membership by certain criteria.  For instance an a capella group can restrict membership to the best singers for the positions available (e.g., if the group calls for 2 altos, 2 tenors, 2 basses, and 2 sopranos plus alternates).   An honor society can require a certain GPA.    Religious belief, race, ethnicity, and sex (admittedly female basses and college age male sopranos are fairly rare) are not legitimate criteria in most universities’ views.

There are perhaps legitimate fears of ‘steeplejacking’ for some groups.  Steeplejacking refers to a group packing another church with new members, having the new members vote out the old officers and taking the church’s assets and using it for another purpose.      However most student groups don’t have the assets to be of interest and there are other means of preventing this at least for student groups.

That I would consider to be part of the price of going to Vanderbilt University. When you enroll, you’re getting all of the school’s policies as a package; if you don’t like Vandy’s rules, you can go to Bob Jones University or wherever else will admit you. If I seriously objected to what a school openly stood for, I wouldn’t go there; and Vandy is a pricey school in a city with lots of options, so it’s not as though peoples’ choices are limited.

It’s not “your money”.  It’s money you’ve freely chosen to spend at the university as part of your education.  The money is spent on fees.

You might as well say that you are forced to give money to the student bookstore to get books, then if you want your own money back you are forced to work a cash register!  FORCED INTO SLAVERY WITH MY OWN MONEY!!!!  Oh the SHAME!  What would Ayn Rand say!??

 The idea is that these student groups are using campus buildings for meeting places, signage, etc.  So it’s not just money.

And the idea is that these campus clubs contribute to a richer on campus experience.   What better time in life to sample a diversity of opinions than on campus?

I can understand the funding argument. However, I have a problem with this so-called non-discriminatory business. After all, what’s the point of having a niche club if you can’t limit membership? Suppose I start a chess club and some skateboarder joins and wants us all to skateboard instead of play chess? Just go start your own skateboard club! Personally, I have no problem being kept out of various clubs if I don’t measure up to their standards. I’ll simply find one that I agree with or, again, start my own.

Unless of course, if your group was small, enough of them joined to create a majority of believers in the Atheist Campus Alliance.  

If you have the freedom of association, that necessarily implies that you are free to form a group of people who share certain things [interests, beliefs, goals] etc. with you and to limit membership to those sharing those interests, beliefs, goals with you. .  

I suspect that is allowed as long as anyone is free to register as a Republican or Democrat (which I think is true as long as one is a US Citizen and over 18).    Note neither political party can say to person X, you cannot register as a member of our party even if all their political views are against the party’s platform.  On the other hand it means those who are underage (and some college students are under 18) can’t join so the clubs might as well not have registered member of the party as a criteria (especially since it might be hard to check if the person is registered in their home state and that is not the same as the state they are attending college).

The  Stanford University rules can be found at http://studentaffairs.stanford.edu/sal/involved/draft-constitution

The Secular Student Alliance btw prohibits member groups from discriminating by religion.

On a lot of college campuses people who aren’t Jewish join some of the Jewish groups. This is often simply because the Friday night dinner food is a lot better than a lot of the other food on campus. When I was an undergraduate at Yale there were a large number of both non-Jews and totally irreligious Jews who went to Friday night dinner for this reason. My impression is that this number is smaller now there for a variety of reasons, but I’ve seen similar things occur at other college campuses.

There seem to be a lot of strawmen hypotheticals in the comments. I don’t have the Vanderbilt rules in front of me, but I imagine that they are like most human rights regulation and legislation. There are certain named groups who are protected from discrimination. In other words you can’t have a club that turns away students based on race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or religion (for example). If a Jewish person wants to join the Hindu students’ group or a straight guy wants to join the LGBTQ group, well they’re free to do so. If someone joins a club just to harass the other participants and starts causing trouble, that’s the time they can be kicked out.

I think the distinction between characteristics that are entirely inherent (race; gender, etc.) and those that are matters of choice is not a trivial one. I can see with some justice public universities banning organizations that discriminate on the basis of that first category [ethnicity, race, gender, etc.] but not banning groups that discriminate on the basis of the second category [political views, religion, etc.]

But there’s no clear dividing line that will apply in all cases all the time, I’m afraid. [E.g. what if a group of students holds to religious beliefs that racial segregation is the will of god, and so forms a necessarily all white religious student organization?] Off public campuses, there is no limit on how private groups may discriminate. If you wanted to start a group limited to straight white male left handed people, you’re free to do so as a matter of right. And should be.

Campus groups are a little iffier since (a) they are often funded by student fees to some extent (b) and recognition by a public university can be taken to mean university endorsement of whatever the group advocates or practices, at least to some extent. [This was a common argument against public high schools permitting Gay-Straight Alliance clubs, that permitting them would involve the school in endorsing a “gay agenda” or “gay lifestyle” etc. ] The argument has no merit, but it is true [read letters columns for examples] that many in the general public do not , however wrongly, distinguish between university recognition of a student group an university
endorsement of that group. This is not something universities supported by public funds can ignore entirely.

But in the end, even on a public campus, if free association is pitted against the university’s attempt to discourage discrimination in freely associating student groups , even on the basis of race or gender, I think I’d have to come down on the side of free association. So, yes, if a group of student air heads wanted to form a Testosterone Science Club and post a “Boys Only” sign on the door, yes, they should be able to do it. And if the university supported a broad range of student groups with university funds, they should have similar access to those funds. Otherwise inevitably the university would become involved in punishing some groups because of the
content of their belief…. and any government agency, even a university, doing that makes me nervous.

The usual question that immediately arises when I make that argument is this: “But suppose a group of racists on campus wanted to organize as a student group a White Students Alliance? Should they be able to?” The answer is yes. [BTW there have been Black Student clubs and alliances organized on campuses and recognized as student groups, though most of the examples I’m familiar with are on private not public campuses.] In the end, blithering idiots have a right to organize groups limiting membership to other blithering idiots, and I’m not sure that we can protect the right of the rest of us, on or off campus, to create and join associations we find
amenable to our ideas if we can’t protect their right to do the same.

Regardless on which side your opinion falls, rules requiring belief in a club’s precepts to somehow preserve the “purity,” and  fears about infiltration by “the bad guys” in either Christian or atheist clubs with the intent to disrupt the club all assume one thing:

That you can somehow accurately assess the true beliefs of a student who wants to join a club.

With or without discriminatory club policies, anybody can claim that they’re a Christian or they’re an atheist. How the heck are you going to prove or disprove that?  A polygraph? Oh please. Is there a blood test for this? A DNA marker? 

The Vanderbilt group –- and the national CLS organization
are worried about “infiltration”, arguing that a person hostile to the
group could rise to a leadership position, then attempt to tear it apart
through conflict.

Give me a break. Life is too short, college is too short to waste any time playing Super Secret Ninja Spy to bring down your college club.  Delusions of persecution almost always require delusions of grandeur as well.  You have a very magnified estimate of your own importance. Sorry to spoil your fantasy, but nobody cares enough about you to bother.

Does anyone know of a verifiable case where a deep cover Christian or atheist mole spent months or years of elaborate deception to finally work their way to be an atheist club’s or a Christian club’s Manchurian Candidate?

I think a lot of the replies here missed the phrase “full membership OPPORTUNITIES” in my comment. The issue that the CLS presents is that they refuse to allow the OPPORTUNITY to be a leader to anyone. On the topic of Erp’s comment, a singing group can restrict the kind of members it has, but it cannot keep people from trying out for the membership. Anyone can try to get a higher GPA to qualify for an honor group. Additionally, not everyone who wants to be part of the Greek system gets in, and there’s very little rhyme or reason to their choices–but anyone can rush any frat/sor that they want.

Publicly funded and affiliated organizations should not be allowed to discriminate based upon religion (or lack), age, gender(including trans), disability, race, or sexual orientation. In a college setting, “publicly funded”would include any organization that is eligible to apply for student government funding. (Full disclosure, I believe few college students care what groups utilize the facilities as long as they are not impeding the activities of their own groups or causing damage, so I think the use of buildings is a weak argument).

To address a point that should come up from this:
The argument that frats take only men and sors take only women is valid, though not necessarily true. I belong(ed) to a co-ed honor frat, and we had a co-ed sister sor. That said, the traditions of frats and sors run deep, and though they are hard to defeat they often need to be challenged. And isn’t challenging the status quo a big part of what the Atheist movement is about?

They include religion in the non-discrimination policy because religion is often a grounds for descrimination.  Whether it is a choice is irrelevent.  It is a pragmatic decision based on how discrimination works in the real world.

Understood but doing that puts the school in what seems to me the absurd position of insisting that the Baptist Student Aliance MUST admit non-Baptists. Or that the Catholic Student Union must admit even anti-Catholic zealots.

Given his behavior towards you later, I would wonder if he joined the Jewish students’ group to be disruptive there too

I and a few friends want to become part of the leadership of your site.  As leaders, we would naturally expect to have full say as to what material is posted.  Let us know how we go about this, ok?  We already know we have your backing to do so because of your stance detailed above, right?

Now this stirkes me as important. After all, if this isn’t resolved immediately ( no, wait; how about after extensive debate? ) we can expect a virtual floodgate of aetheists joining, and, God forbid ( no pun intended) , LEADING, Christian,Muslim and Jewish organizations…….
Come on. For Chrissakes (no pun intentded), let’s focus our awaesome inteelectual powers and incisive journalistic resources on a “problem” that actully has the potential to become a PROBLEM.