Whenever I speak about the presence of Christian student groups on campus and especially about the nonsensical application of religious-nondiscrimination rules to religious groups, I always (and I mean always) get some variation of the following question: “If we permit Christian student groups to discriminate on the basis of religion, what’s to stop the Klan from forming student groups?” The notion that tossing Christian student groups from campus is a mere side effect of an all-consuming effort to halt student white supremacy is absurd on its face (“I’m sorry, Johnny, but you’re going to have to stop your Bible study or it might inspire a battalion of Klansmen to gallop through the quad”), but yet the notion persists.
Just this week, my ADF colleague Greg Baylor met this argument head-on at a debate against Prof. Marci Hamilton at the Cardozo School of Law. He reports:
Prof. Hamilton asserted that the “bottom line question” in this case is as follows: if the Court orders Hastings to recognize CLS, will public law schools be required to recognize the Ku Klux Klan?
. . . .
During the “equal access” debates in the 1980s, opponents argued that requiring public schools to give student Bible clubs access to meeting space would lead to the proliferation of Nazi, skinhead, and Klan groups on campus. Over 25 years after the adoption of the federal Equal Access Act, we can safely say that these fears were utterly unfounded. The notion that groups of racist law students are poised to seek official recognition from America’s public law schools, just waiting for the Supreme Court to rule in CLS’s favor, is frankly preposterous.
More fundamentally, there is an enormous distinction between an entity engaging in invidious race discrimination and religious organization requiring its leaders and members to share its religious views. A synagogue that requires its rabbi to be Jewish is not like the Klan. A mosque that requires its imam to be Muslim is not like the Klan. And a CLS chapter that requires its Bible study leaders to be a Christian is not like the Klan. Sometimes, unfortunately, it is necessary to say what ought to be self-evident.
This is exactly right. Belief- and conduct-based “discrimination” is fundamentally different from race-based discrimination. Your race does not dictate your beliefs or your conduct. White people can (and do) join the NAACP because they believe and support the NAACP’s mission. But does a Muslim have the same beliefs as a Christian? Obviously not.