Christian group locked out of university
Pastor Dale Morgan
Christian group locked out of university*
Lawsuit alleges discrimination against support group for believers
Posted: July 14, 2007
Christian Legal Society and the Alliance Defense Fund
A lawsuit has been filed against the University of Florida, accusing
officials there of discriminating against a student organization because
its members must be Christian men.
The action was filed this week by the Christian Legal Society and the
Alliance Defense Fund over the university's stance regarding the
Christian fraternity Beta Upsilon Chi.
"By denying BYX's application for recognition as a Registered Student
Organization and the rights, benefits, and privileges thereto on the
basis of BYX's requirement that its members be male college students,
while extending Registered Student Organization status to other student
organizations, including Christian fraternities and sororities, without
regard to whether they select members on the basis of sex, Defendants
have denied … equal protection of the laws guaranteed … by the 14th
Amendment," the lawsuit said.
"University officials refuse to recognize BYX as a registered student
group because the group limits its membership to Christian men, but the
school does not apply a similar standard to other student
organizations," the groups said.
"Christian student groups cannot be singled out for discrimination. The
right to associate with people of like mind and interest applies to all
student groups on a public university campus," said Timothy J. Tracey,
litigation counsel for the Center for Law & Religious Freedom at the
Christian Legal Society.
"The University of Florida deprives BYX of this right when it forces the
group to abandon its identity as a Christian men's organization," he said.
The fraternity, which also calls itself "Brothers Under Christ," seeks
to teach male college students what it means to be Christian men. The
university refused to offer the group recognition, alleging the group's
requirement that members be Christian men is "discrimination."
"The university recognizes the Women’s Chorale and Men’s Ice Hockey even
though they are single-sex organizations,” said Tracey. “Why then is the
university telling this fraternity it cannot limit its membership to
Christian men?”
Without that official recognition, BYX is denied critical benefits
provided other student groups, such as access to meeting space and the
ability to advertise and recruit members on campus, the law firms said.
The action was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern
District of Florida, Gainesville Division.
It notes that the fraternity cannot affiliate with an organization of
secular fraternities, which would provide that it be given recognition,
because it requires members to be Christian. The only other option is to
organize as an "off-campus" student group, but those are denied a host
of opportunities, the complaint said.
"Off-campus student groups are specifically denied the ability to host
events or to reserve meeting space on campus, and the ability to seek
student government funding," the complaint said.
Other benefits for "recognized" groups include office space, a student
organization mailbox, filing and storage space, access to tables and
bulletin boards, computer use, access to listservs, and a student
organization e-mail and website.
"BYX is caught in a conundrum. UF refuses to recognize BYX as a
Registered Student Organization because the group discriminates on the
basis of sex. UF cannot recognize BYX as a Social Fraternity because BYX
is unable to affiliate with the [organization of fraternities] due to
the group's religious criteria for members," the complaint said.
"As a Christian fraternity, BYX is locked out of the UF campus. The only
way UF will recognize BYX is if it chooses to give up its identity as a
men's organization or if it abandons its religious criteria for
members," the complaint said.
"Many registered organizations are similarly situated to BYX in that
they limit membership and/or leadership on the basis of sex. For
example, The Sedoctaves is a women's a cappella singing group. …
Progressive Black Men is a professional service organization for
African-American men … UF also recognizes numerous single-sex club
sports teams, such as Florida's Elite Ultimate Lades (a women's ultimate
Frisbee club), Men's Lacrosse, and Men's Ice Hockey," the complaint noted.
Officials with the two legal groups said they just recently completed
the same argument with the University of Georgia.
There school officials claimed religious discrimination. However, they
quickly agreed to recognize BYX as a registered student organization and
provide the same benefits as other organizations have.
Their letter, dated just days after that complaint had been filed, said
Georgia's Division of Student Affairs "will process the paperwork to
immediately register Beta Upsilon Chi as a student organization at the
University of Georgia.
"As we also discussed, the university will be reviewing its student
organization policies in the near future and all of your concerns will
be thoroughly considered," the Georgia letter said.