Columnist George Will scores some points in his column “Conformity for diversity’s sake,” but his argument gets marred by conservative tics such as conflating sexual orientation with “sexual practices,” as when he writes:
Last year, after a Christian fraternity allegedly expelled a gay undergraduate because of his sexual practices, Vanderbilt redoubled its efforts to make the more than 300 student organizations comply with its “long-standing nondiscrimination policy.” That policy, says a university official, does not allow the Christian Legal Society “to preclude someone from a leadership position based on religious belief.” So an organization formed to express religious beliefs, including the belief that homosexual activity is biblically forbidden, is itself effectively forbidden.
Still, liberals (in the classical sense, at least) should be wary of efforts to limit freedom of association, as Will points out when he quotes former U.S. Supreme Court Justice William Brennan, “the court’s leading liberal of the last half-century,” who said:
“There can be no clearer example of an intrusion into the internal structure or affairs of an association than a regulation that forces the group to accept members it does not desire. Such a regulation may impair the ability of the original members to express only those views that brought them together. Freedom of association therefore plainly presupposes a freedom not to associate.”
Put another way, if gay groups, say, on university campuses, don’t want to have to allow religious conservatives to attend their meetings and selectively quote Scripture at them, they shouldn’t insist that religious conservatives be forced to allow openly gay students to join their clubs. Of course, on today’s campuses, the former would never be tolerated, but demanding the latter reveals the ideological conformism that, as Will points out, underlies much of “diversity” orthodoxy.
9 Comments for “The Right to Associate, or Not”
posted by Barry Deutsch on
Your example is unfair, because it conflates two different things. There’s a big difference between kicking someone out for their identity (such as being gay or being Christian), and kicking someone out for bad behavior that interrupts club meetings.
Someone who insists on quoting Scripture — or, for that matter, anything else (The Hobbit or even the phone book) — loudly in the middle of a meeting would be unwelcome, but they’re unwelcome without regard to what religion they are. And they’d be just as unwelcome in the Horticulture Club or the UN Club.
The truth is, no college LGBT group I’ve ever been in would kick someone out for being a Christian — the groups generally have an open-door policy.
And what’s at issue here isn’t the right of Christians to form organizations and exclude homosexuals. It’s the right of Christians to do that on Vanderbilt’s dime. Everyone has a constitution right to freedom of association, but that doesn’t mean they have a constitutional right to be paid money from the student activity fee fund.
posted by Jorge on
And what’s at issue here isn’t the right of Christians to form organizations and exclude homosexuals. It’s the right of Christians to do that on Vanderbilt’s dime. Everyone has a constitution right to freedom of association, but that doesn’t mean they have a constitutional right to be paid money from the student activity fee fund.
Pretty much my thinking, although I come to this conclusion reluctantly. It’s similar to how the government can force schools and private organizations to do its bidding because it’s their biggest source of funding.
To put it another way, Vanderbilt University has freedom of association rights as well–it’s a private university. (Don’t get too swayed by Mr. Will’s claims that the school is in conformity to big government.) So, too, does the student body as a whole, those who pay the student activity fee. In my college recognition of organizations was decided by the student association. The university and the student body have an interest in protecting their prerogative to exclude organizations that do not reflect their views. The courts have held that their interest supercedes that of the student organization.
posted by Jorge on
At least in this case (I have a feeling I may have bitten off more than I can chew with that last)
posted by Matt on
I like George Will very much, but this column is sloppy. As you note, he claims that somone was expelled from a Christian fraternity for “sexual practices”, and in the source which he links to with the very words “sexual practices,” it says that the expelled student in question was “not sexually active.”
posted by JohnInCA on
Right. The school has the right to not associate with someone that won’t play by their rules. What’s the problem?
posted by Throbert McGee on
True in itself, but it’s a separate question as to whether a given school’s rules for SAF fund eligibility are themselves constitutional.
In Rosenberger v. UVa, the Supremes ruled that if UVa made SAF money available to student publications that printed viewpoints offensive to members of certain religions (which UVa did), then the school could not withhold money from a Christian publication whose proselytizing viewpoints might offend some non-believers.
(Mr. Rosenberger’s publication, Wide Awake, had drawn criticism for some anti-gay views. And as a regular contributor to a different UVa publication that often printed highly irreverent material, I was quite happy with the SCOTUS decision and did not begrudge Rosenberger my SAF dollars. The only thing I might feel differently about today is that, arguably, the rise of Web-based publication has made it less justifiable to give student journalism any SAF subsidies at all. But back when all student publications were paper-based, I think it was justifiable to offer all of them some content-neutral a$$istance in paying for printing costs.)
posted by Throbert McGee on
There’s also a potential difference between excluding someone from general membership and excluding someone from eligibility for leadership positions — a distinction that Will’s column glosses over a bit in comparing the situation with the Vanderbilt fraternity and the case of the Christian Legal Society.
posted by Throbert McGee on
I should also have added that there’s a difference between saying to a student group “you’re not eligible for SAF subsidies” and “you’re not allowed to hold meetings in campus multipurpose facilities or in classrooms after-hours”.
posted by Jorge on
In Rosenberger v. UVa, the Supremes ruled that if UVa made SAF money available to student publications that printed viewpoints offensive to members of certain religions (which UVa did), then the school could not withhold money from a Christian publication whose proselytizing viewpoints might offend some non-believers.
But wasn’t that because the University of Virginia was a public university, and thus a government organization? The analysis would be “what objective compelling interest does the government have to do x?” You can’t say the government has a compelling interest to ban offensive material if it enforces that rule haphazardly, and the government can’t discriminate based on religion.
A private university gets more leeway under the Constitution, although it’s still subject to the Civil Rights Act. Let me look up that decision. Eh, I’ll use Wikipedia. “Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia, 515 U.S. 819 (1995), was an opinion by the Supreme Court of the United States regarding whether a state university might, consistently with the First Amendment…” yeah that’s all I need to know. Wikipedia cites the majority opinon as saying “The Government may not…” So it’s not analagous because Vanderbuilt is a private organization, like for example the Boy Scouts.