On Monday The Weekly Standard posted an article about religious freedom at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts.
The article reports:
Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts has banned a Christian group from campus because the group requires student leaders to adhere to “basic biblical truths of Christianity.” The decision to ban the group, called the Tufts Christian Fellowship, was made by officials from the university’s student government, specifically the Tufts Community Union Judiciary.
The ban means the group “will lose the right to use the Tufts name in its title or at any activities, schedule events or reserve university space through the Office for Campus Life,” according to the Tufts Daily. Additionally, Tufts Christian Fellowship will be unable to receive money from a pool that students are required to pay into and that is specifically set aside for student groups.
This is nothing new. On March 30, I posted an article about a similar problem at Vanderbilt University (rightwinggranny.com). I reported what had happened at Vanderbilt:
Vandy Catholic — a student group with some 500 members — has decided it cannot agree to the policy and will be leaving campus in the fall. PJ Jedlovec, the president of Vandy Catholic, says it was a difficult decision, one made after much prayer and discussion.
“We are first and foremost a Catholic organization,” says Jedlovec. “We do, in fact, have qualifications – faith-based qualifications for leadership. We require that our leaders be practicing Catholics. And the university’s nondiscrimination policy — they have made it clear that there is no room in it for an organization that has these faith-based qualifications.”
The whole purpose of a group on campus is to allow students with similar interests and ideas to get together to discuss and explore those interests and ideas. It seems to me that every group meeting on campus probably has leadership that represents the interests and ideas of the group. This is clearly a violation of the First Amendment rights of these students.
