Among the hundreds of bills Gov. Bob McDonnell signed into law last week, one in particular may have direct negative effects on Virginia’s public college students.
The Student Group Protection Act ful SB1074ER, sponsored by Attorney General hopeful Sen. Mark Obenshain (R-Harrisonburg), allows student groups at public colleges and universities to enact exclusive membership policies. The bill lets organizations restrict membership to students “committed” to the group’s “religious or political mission.”
Without apparent irony, the bill’s second clause commands that no public higher-education institution “shall discriminate” against any student organization that, in its own turn, pursues the discriminatory membership policies the bill protects.
The measure’s professed purpose is to protect the religious and political liberties of student organizations and to safeguard freedom of association. Neither justification proves convincing.
Take the example of a Christian student — we’ll call him Chris — who would like to join a Muslim student group. It is puzzling, and highly unlikely, that Chris, an ardent Methodist, would seek to join an organization devoted to Islam in the first place. But if he does wish to be a part of the Muslim group, it is unclear why his religion alone should bar him from membership.
If Chris wanted to join the Muslim group in order to harass, annoy or intimidate the group’s members, the basis for why the Muslim organization would be justified in barring him from membership would be Chris’s engagement in harassment or ridicule. And universities have codes of conduct in place to deal with infractions such as harassment or intimidation. If Chris’s behavior is inappropriate for the group’s activities or environment, the group could take action against him.
But Chris’s behavior — not his beliefs — constitutes the legitimate basis for excluding him from the organization. If the Student Group Protection Act merely sought to safeguard the religious liberties of the students in religious organizations from direct harm, as in the unlikely scenario of non-believers infiltrating a religious group in order to undermine it from within, the measure would be redundant because schools already have standards of conduct to address that kind of destructive behavior. The bill’s design, it seems, does not aim at preventing harm to groups so much as it gropes at ideological purity within groups.
If Chris were interested in joining the Muslim group because he is curious to learn more about Islam despite holding Christian beliefs, the Muslim group would not be justified in excluding him. If he were rude or offensive at meetings, the organization could then bar him from membership. But Chris’s personal convictions — and how can one even determine another’s personal convictions with absolute certainty? — would not be a proper basis for exclusion.
The bill’s second plausible motive — maintaining freedom of association — similarly does not hold up to scrutiny. College students already have freedom of association in two ways. Informally, they can create groups of friends and unofficial clubs. Formally, they can join recognized student organizations or Greek-letter groups. The bill does not impinge upon the first type of freedom of association. Students can still form exclusive groups at universities. Before Obenshain’s bill became law, however, students could not demand public funds to support groups with discriminatory membership policies.
Framing the bill as a way to protect the second type of freedom of association — association within formal groups — is misleading. First, why should discriminatory groups receive state dollars? Public universities should have the ability to require their student organizations to abide by nondiscrimination policies. Such policies are necessary to avoid problems of fairness. Why should Chris, for example, pay the same student activities fees if he’s barred from joining certain groups? Second, the bill impinges on freedom of association more than it supports it. If Chris is not allowed to join a group because of his personal convictions, one could argue that his freedom of association is being encroached upon.
The bill’s vague wording also leads to the possibility of abuse. The measure allows student groups to restrict membership to “only persons committed to” the group’s “mission.” Let’s say Chris the Christian is also gay. A conservative Christian organization could exclude him on the basis of his sexuality if the group’s members hold that being openly gay is at odds with the organization’s “mission.” Similarly, a student group such as the once-infamous Youth for Western Civilization could exclude non-white members under the bill’s scope.
Student groups shape a school’s social character. Not only is Obenshain’s bill redundant when it comes to protecting religious liberties, and unnecessary if not damaging when it comes to safeguarding freedom of association, his measure is also blind to a central value of college: hearing different perspectives and challenging your beliefs. The student-organizations act runs contrary to the spirit of college. We do not want student groups at public universities solidifying into monolithic ideological factions. Diversity of opinion within organizations extends a school’s educational mission, augments students’ understandings of opposing viewpoints and enhances a school’s social fluidity. If a student organization sets its “mission” as doctrine and polices the beliefs of its members to the point that those who do not conform risk expulsion from the organization, that group does not merit public funding. While some groups may justifiably demand a level of ability from prospective members — to be a part of a debating society, you may need to possess some capacity for argument — barriers to membership based on belief are not legitimate. Discrimination concerns aside, the ideal of open membership is crucial if a college wishes for its student organizations to be places where students thrive, grow and learn from each other — even if they don’t always agree.
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