The NAE filed a co-amici in the religious freedom case Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, which is before the Supreme Court. The Christian Legal Society (CLS) is a respected nondenominational organization with student chapters at law schools throughout the country. In refusing to recognize the CLS student chapter, the Hastings University College of Law has engaged in viewpoint discrimination, permitting a wide array of viewpoints while censoring the evangelical viewpoint.

This case has far-reaching implications for religious liberty, which is a foundational concern of the National Association of Evangelicals. If this policy of Hastings College of Law to exclude CLS from recognition as a campus organization is upheld, it could allow every public college and university in the United States to exclude all evangelical Christian organizations (such as Campus Crusade for Christ, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, the Navigators, the Reformed University Fellowship, Baptist Campus Ministries, and others), from recognition for a similar reason.

If you would like to view the co-amici, email the NAE Government Affairs office.

Update 6/28/10: The Supreme Court upheld the lower court’s ruling allowing Hastings to not recognize the CLS student chapter at the law school. While a setback for CLS and religious liberty, the Court’s decision is narrow due to the “all-comers” policy unique to Hastings. This policy required student organizations to admit any student as a full participant in the organization. For example, the Women’s Law Association would have to admit males and the Black Law Student Association would have to admit non-African Americans. Most public universities permit student associations to establish selection criteria, but then prohibit discrimination with respect to various protected classes.

The operative decision on traditional nondiscrimination policies continues to be the 7th Circuit's decision in CLS v Walker, 453 F.3d 853 (7th Cir. 2006), which held that traditional nondiscrimination policies cannot be applied to a religious group that requires its officers to sign a statement of faith. The Hasting decision expressly said that it was not addressing the typical nondiscrimination policy.

The Court's recent decision also allows for CLS to argue on remand that the Hastings’ policy is pretextual, which the record demonstrates that it is.

In the meantime, students should be aware of the repressive nature of policies such as Hastings all-comers rule and should resist the implementation of such policies on their campuses. There are circumstances in which an all-comers policy is unconstitutional. In his concurrence, Justice Kennedy said that the Hastings’ all-comers policy would itself be unconstitutional if a group could show that the policy was used to infiltrate the group or challenge its leadership in order to stifle its views.