If it wasn't for FIRE, these administrators would get away with this censorship.
Two strikes and you're ...
Critical Mass blog
Two years ago, administrators at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill demonstrated their ignorance of the First Amendment when they ordered the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship to strike wording from its constitution stipulating that the group's leaders be Christian. Such wording, the administrators argued, was discriminatory; when the IVF refused to cooperate, administrators threatened to withdraw the IVCF's school funding and to "de-recognize" the group. In a letter to IVCF, Jonathan E. Curtis, UNC's assistant director for student activities and organizations, told IVCF to “modify the wording of your charter or I will have no choice but to revoke your University recognition.”
FIRE successfully defended the group, explaining to UNC administrators how freedom of association works, and pointing out that the only discrimination in the case was their own discrimination against the IVCF. After the embarrassment of FIRE-instituted media exposure, UNC backed down and restored the group's rights. “While the University continues to seek to ensure that our facilities and resources are not used in any way that fosters illegal discrimination, we also wish to uphold the principles of freedom of expression," Chancellor James Moeser said in a statement. "Thus I have asked our staff to allow IVCF to continue to operate as an official recognized student organization.”
That should have been a clear, unforgettable lesson. But apparently it was not. The very same administrator who made trouble for the IVCF in 2002, Jonathan E. Curtis, is now making the exact same trouble for another campus Christian organization, the Alpha Omega Iota Christian fraternity. AOI has a clause in its constitution similar to the one in IVCF's that required group leaders to be Christians. And last fall, Curtis pulled the same prank with AOI that he had pulled less than a year before with IVCF, informing AOI leaders that unless they reworded their constitution, they would lose their funding as well as their status as a recognized student group.
Curtis' threat initially led AOI members to decide against submitting the required annual application for recognition (AOI had been a recognized student group since 1999, and had not encountered problems until Curtis got involved in 2003). But now AOI is fighting back. FIRE wrote a letter to Moeser remonstrating with him last month. Having received no response, they are going public with the story of UNC's continued arrogant unwillingness to accord religious students their associational rights.
I think FIRE will win this one, just like it won the last one, and just like it has won a number of analogous cases at colleges and universities across the country. My question is, how many times does Jonathan Curtis get to flout the law, abuse students, and embarrass his employers before he is relieved of his job? In 2002, when he violated the IVCF's rights, he could plead ignorance--but he can't do that this time.
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