Back in the late 1970s, during the cornerstone seminar in Baylor University’s Church-State Studies program, my major professor made an interesting prediction while reviewing some documents that would eventually surface with the Bob Jones University v. United States ruling at the Supreme Court in 1982.
That case pivoted on questions of racism and claims linked to religious doctrine. At some point in the future, my professor said, the high court would face similar cases in which centuries of religious doctrine would clash with beliefs at the heart of the modern Sexual Revolution.
The U.S. Supreme Court would be challenged to equate the facts of racism with the mysteries of sexual identity (or words to that effect). At that point, traditional forms of Christian education would be at risk.
Anyone who has followed American politics in recent decades has watched this conflict march through religious and educational structures and into the headlines. The question, all along, would be if “progressive” thinkers — the word “liberal” is problematic — would find a way for the Sexual Revolution to trump existing legal standards defending free speech, freedom of association and freedom of religion.
Thus, Julia Duin wrote a recent post describing coverage of SCOTUS moves linked to clashes between the modern Orthodox Judaism of Yeshiva University and LGBTQ groups on its New York campus. See this post: “New York Times pursues ultra-Orthodox yeshivas in massive story that raises (some) Jewish ire.”
One of the stories she discussed was a Jewish Telegraphic Agency piece with this headline, linked to an earlier stage in this legal struggle: “Yeshiva U can block LGBTQ club for time being, Supreme Court says.” This case provides, Duin noted, an:
… interesting counterweight on what’s happening in Christian colleges across the country. Last week a group called Campus Pride released a list on what it considers “the absolute worst, most unsafe campuses” for LGBTQ students. Not surprisingly, Yeshiva University is one.
She then stressed this crucial passage in the JTA report:
Yeshiva University’s case could be complicated by the fact that it removed religion from its charter, essentially the text that gives it permission to operate in New York State, in 1967 in an effort to secure more state funding. Some in the Yeshiva University community, reflecting on the simmering tensions around the Pride Alliance, want the school to add its religious mission back to its charter.
That’s a crucial point in church-state — or synagogue-state — clashes such as this one. Thus, Duin predicted what has, in fact, come to pass (at least at this moment in the drama). If Yeshiva doesn’t act, quickly, to clarify the links between its ancient doctrines and this modern conflict, she wrote:
… I’m guessing they are toast in terms of the law. Comparable Christian institutions have — for a decade now — been adding religious references and signs of denominational ties into their founding documents as fast as they can to avoid just this sort of debate.
That leads us, in this “think piece” to a double-decker headline at a New York Times offering an update on this standoff:
Yeshiva University Halts All Student Clubs to Block L.G.B.T.Q. Group
Earlier in the week, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed a ruling to stand for now that required the university to recognize the group.
Here is the crucial passage in the story:
The university did not say for how long the suspension would last or whether it would be revisited. When asked for comment, a spokesman for Yeshiva University referred back to a statement from Rabbi Ari Berman, the institution’s president, that was posted online. …
“Every faith-based university in the country has the right to work with its students, including its L.G.B.T.Q. students, to establish the clubs, places and spaces that fit within its faith tradition,” Mr. Berman said in the statement. “Yeshiva University simply seeks that same right of self-determination.”
A lawyer for the students, Katherine Rosenfeld, said in an email … that the move by the university was similar to discriminatory tactics used in the past against other minority groups. The move by Yeshiva “is a throwback to 50 years ago when the city of Jackson, Mississippi, closed all public swimming pools rather than comply with court orders to desegregate,” she said.
There’s that pivotal question, again, that SCOTUS has never clearly answered — linked to the Bob Jones case long ago: Does sexuality orientation, or evolving claims of gender identity, equal race in discrimination cases linked to First Amendment rights?
However, this Times story is (#HereWeGoAgain) missing two crucial words linked to Yeshiva’s decision to cancel ALL activities organized by official campus student groups. Those words, of course, are “equal access.” Readers my want to see two other recent GetReligion posts: “Another SCOTUS win for 'equal access,' whether most journalists realized this or not” and then “Fellowship of Christian Athletes wins an 'equal access' case, even if LATimes missed that.”
In the first of two posts, I opened with this background material:
For a decade or more, U.S. Supreme Court justices have been arguing about the separation of church and state. What we keep seeing is a clash between two different forms of “liberalism,” with that term defined in terms of political science instead of partisan politics.
Some justices defend a concept of church-state separation that leans toward the secularism of French Revolution liberalism. The goal is for zero tax dollars to end up in the checkbooks of citizens who teach or practice traditional forms of religious doctrine (while it’s acceptable to support believers whose approach to controversial issues — think sin and salvation — mirror those of modernity).
Then there are justices who back “equal access” concepts articulated by a broad, left-right coalition that existed in the Bill Clinton era. The big idea: Religious beliefs are not a uniquely dangerous form of speech and action and, thus, should be treated in a manner similar to secular beliefs and actions. If states choose to use tax dollars to support secular beliefs and practices, they should do the same for religious beliefs and practices.
In the Yeshiva University case, “equal access” principles would argue — if courts rule against religious-freedom claims — that the school’s leaders can choose to shut down ALL campus-recognized student groups, treating all groups equally.
This action will punt this legal football, I predict, back to SCOTUS. But let me repeat the point Duin made in her post — Yeshiva is going to have to clearly and openly state its doctrines on sexual ethics and defend them in terms of Jewish law and tradition.
The court cannot, or should not, attempt to settle these debates between Jewish groups and streams of Jewish tradition. But Yeshiva’s leaders must state their school’s beliefs clearly, so that it can demonstrate to the court that students who chose this doctrinally-defined private school knew what they were doing when they enrolled.
At some point, SCOTUS will have to tackle these conflicts head on, in part because the conflicts INSIDE religious schools are increasing. Educators on the doctrinal left and right are going to have to be candid and put their core doctrines in writing for students, parents, donors, etc.
If you doubt that, see this headline at Inside Higher Ed:
Pro-LGBTQ Clergy Unwelcome at Samford
The Baptist university uninvited churches that support LGBTQ rights from participating in a campus ministry event.
It will be easy for readers to spot the key elements of this drama in the story's overture:
A group of Samford University alumni are calling out their alma mater after the Alabama institution’s administrators excluded two local churches from its annual campus ministry fair because of their support of same-sex marriage. Leaders of the alumni organization, which supports and advocates for LGBTQ students at Samford, say the recent actions by the university indicate that it is becoming more conservative.
“If Samford doesn’t turn back to the way it was before, this will have signaled a very far right turn à la a Liberty University type of college, which is not what Samford has been for decades,” said Brit Blalock, a 2008 graduate and founder of SAFE Samford. “It’s been much more of a middle-of-the-road, very liberal arts college. This would be a vast departure from that.”
Samford’s vice president of student affairs, Philip Kimrey, wrote in a campuswide email sent Wednesday that “we are welcoming of all denominations and have no policy or plan to restrict any denominations from our campus.” But he added that university leaders “have a responsibility to formally partner with ministry organizations that share our beliefs.
Need more details to spot more of the familiar patterns in these stories?
Samford, a Baptist university in Birmingham with nearly 6,000 students, doesn’t have an official LGBTQ student group on campus; a former president declined to recognize the organization in 2017. Its nondiscrimination policy also does not include sexual orientation and gender identity, putting the institution in the minority of Christian colleges and universities in the United States, said Jonathan Coley, an associate professor of sociology at Oklahoma State University. …
Coley tracks LGBTQ policies at Christian colleges and universities and has seen an overall shift toward more inclusive policies, but some institutions with discriminatory policies toward LGBTQ students are expanding limitations on student advocacy for LGBTQ rights. Some institutions even outline these limitations in detail in one to two pages in student handbooks, he said.
In other words, doctrinally conservative schools — Liberty University is a straw-man example — are attempting to clarify, in writing, their teachings and policies for potential students and their families.
Schools on the doctrinal left will need to do the same thing, if they plan to limit the free-speech rights of students, professors and staff who are members of traditional faith groups. See this piece about an earlier conflict of this kind at Vanderbilt University: “The new campus orthodoxy that forbids most old orthodoxies.”
Do journalists want to do accurate, balanced coverage of these church-state clashes, which keeping popping up from coast to coast? If so, reporters need to call church-state lawyers — cultural liberals and conservatives — and ask them for their views on how “equal access” principles, the “old” liberalism on these matters, are affecting SCOTUS debates and decisions in these cases.
Just saying. Again. And again.
FIRST IMAGE: “God’s rainbow” illustration, posted at the Ellen’s Little Visits With God website.