You may have read news stories about a case before the U.S. Supreme Court involving the Christian Legal Society (CLS) at the University of California’s Hastings School of Law. The CLS, a group of Christ followers, wants to exclude from membership homosexuals and people who don’t follow Christ.
Although the issue is whether a tax-supported school may deny funds and other benefits to a religious student organization that requires members to agree with the group’s core religious viewpoints, others see a different issue.
Writing in the Wall Street Journal, William McGurn notes that Leo Martinez, the law school’s dean, is defending the school’s policy to withhold funds from student organizations not just on religious grounds. Martinez believes that a black student organization receiving funds should be required to admit members of the KKK.
Forcing student groups to admit those who don’t share their beliefs would reduce diversity, says McGurn, which social engineers love so much. “The larger fact is the way that Hastings-style ‘tolerance’ and ‘diversity’ are actually making our campuses less tolerant and less diverse. Dean Martinez helps us see why. If every college group must admit even those who are hostile to its mission and beliefs, the result is nonsense and conformity.”
The libertarian Cato Institute and the Gays & Lesbians for Individual Liberty have submitted briefs in support of the CLS. Both say such groups allow the minority to have a voice. The latter contends that a forced membership policy assures “only majority viewpoints…That is a patently unreasonable way to ‘promote a diversity of viewpoints.’”
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