Supreme Court to consider case against California law school

[Faeelin]

I cannot believe that this case has gotten this far.  It seems open and shut to me; if a group wants school funding and preference, it must admit any student who wishes to join.  If it wants to exclude students of the school, for whatever reason, then it doesn't get the small subsidy nor the use of the school bulletin boards.  Organizations get to choose their status.

Anyone can keep the Jews, the homosexuals, the non-Middle-Easterners, or whatever from joining their club.  In excluding fellow-students, though, they are sacrificing the preferences the school gives to open association clubs, and they should.  Taxpayers should not be obliged to support organizations which do not consider them worthy of belonging to said organization.

This is why I find their defense in the early cases about gay groups seeking the right to organize at law schools ridiculous. Nobody is saying these groups can't organize as the "We hate gays and am sure this will work out great for our social lives at a school in San Francisco" club. They just can't expel members based on their orientation, religion, etc.

[Malthus]

Which part of the New Testament prohibits homosexuality?

I don't think that Jesus is reported to have said anything about it, but Christianity has little to do with what Jesus supposedly said.

I cannot believe that this case has gotten this far.  It seems open and shut to me; if a group wants school funding and preference, it must admit any student who wishes to join.  If it wants to exclude students of the school, for whatever reason, then it doesn't get the small subsidy nor the use of the school bulletin boards.  Organizations get to choose their status.

Anyone can keep the Jews, the homosexuals, the non-Middle-Easterners, or whatever from joining their club.  In excluding fellow-students, though, they are sacrificing the preferences the school gives to open association clubs, and they should.  Taxpayers should not be obliged to support organizations which do not consider them worthy of belonging to said organization.

Unless there are some facts I don't know, this seems reasonable.

[Martinus]

Which part of the New Testament prohibits homosexuality?

I don't think that Jesus is reported to have said anything about it, but Christianity has little to do with what Jesus supposedly said.

I cannot believe that this case has gotten this far.  It seems open and shut to me; if a group wants school funding and preference, it must admit any student who wishes to join.  If it wants to exclude students of the school, for whatever reason, then it doesn't get the small subsidy nor the use of the school bulletin boards.  Organizations get to choose their status.

Anyone can keep the Jews, the homosexuals, the non-Middle-Easterners, or whatever from joining their club.  In excluding fellow-students, though, they are sacrificing the preferences the school gives to open association clubs, and they should.  Taxpayers should not be obliged to support organizations which do not consider them worthy of belonging to said organization.

This.

I would love to see gay students to join a Christian hate group en masse and vote themselves to its funds.

[Neil]

I would love to see gay students to join a Christian hate group en masse and vote themselves to its funds.

I would love to see those students savagely murdered by an angry mob.  Now that would be justice.

[Barrister]

My preference goes to the student group, although it does raise some troubling issues.

I was president of my university's student group for a particular party.  By our constitution, our membership was limited to anyone who was capable of membership in the national party - which meant citizens and landed immigrants.  We therefore would exclude any student who did not fall into those categories - and as at any university there were a umber of students there on student visas.

But surely that restriction made sense?  Surely some other restrictions make sense?  A Christian group wanting to restrict members to 'practicing Christians', a lesbian group wanting to restrict membership to lesbians?

But of course you can imagine more spiteful, hateful examples - the Aryan students association, "no kikes or niggers allowed".

And let's not oversell the benefits most groups get by being 'recognized' - at my university you could get free room rentals, access to bulletin boards, and the ability to set up a booth in the middle of university a couple of times.

[Martinus]

Actually, as far as I know, you don't have "gay" groups usually but some kinds of "gay-straight" alliance groups - so it is rare that there is a discrimination of any kind in membership.

I think grumbler's approach is pretty sensible - if you want to restrict membership in any way, you should not be receiving the funding, period. This may be not a perfect solution (since sometimes these restrictions "make sense", as you say) but the alternatives - i.e. perfect freedom in restricting access (so you have groups like you mention) or the college (or any other authority) getting into a foggy area of deciding which restrictions make sense and which don't - are worse.

Also, I am curious why you side with the group restricting access for gays, but consider an extreme example to restrict access for Jews or blacks - how are these examples different? 

[The Minsky Moment]

I cannot believe that this case has gotten this far. 

Hastings is part of the UC system - it is a public school and hence a state actor.  Therefore, Hastings can make no rule (law) restricting freedom of speech or association.  The legal question comes down to a significant degree on whether the Hastings non-discrimination rule is viewpoint "neutral" or not.   The school contends that general nondiscrimination principles are inherently viewpoint neutral and constitutionally favored.  The student group's argument is that the rule only applies to discrimination against religion (and sexual orientation) - and that therefore the school is picking out a particular set of viewpoints -- religious beliefs -- to which to apply its rule.  In the student group's argument, that amounts to content or viewpoint based discrimination.

[Faeelin]

And let's not oversell the benefits most groups get by being 'recognized' - at my university you could get free room rentals, access to bulletin boards, and the ability to set up a booth in the middle of university a couple of times.

Eh. If the benefits are so slight, why does the Christian Legal Society want it?

[grumbler]

My preference goes to the student group, although it does raise some troubling issues.

I was president of my university's student group for a particular party.  By our constitution, our membership was limited to anyone who was capable of membership in the national party - which meant citizens and landed immigrants.  We therefore would exclude any student who did not fall into those categories - and as at any university there were a umber of students there on student visas.

But surely that restriction made sense?  Surely some other restrictions make sense?  A Christian group wanting to restrict members to 'practicing Christians', a lesbian group wanting to restrict membership to lesbians?

Your club's restrictions make sense for a political party club, but not for a university club.  A club such as yours is certainly legal and logical, but no university should be sponsoring it, as it does not serve the needs of the school's students.

Ditto for the Christian-only clubs, gay-only clubs, and whatnot.  These clubs serve only the interests of subsets of the university's students, and so should not be "official" clubs.  They should be allowed to meet in campus facilities just like the local ladies' flower-growing club should be, but they shouldn't be allowed to advertise meetings on bulletin boards reserved for official club news.

The "official club" title should be restricted to those clubs whose members are endowed with self-proclaimed expertise as a result of joining, like the race car building clubs, and anyone must be allowed to join those and proclaim themselves instant experts (else what future does the internet have?).

[Barrister]

My preference goes to the student group, although it does raise some troubling issues.

I was president of my university's student group for a particular party.  By our constitution, our membership was limited to anyone who was capable of membership in the national party - which meant citizens and landed immigrants.  We therefore would exclude any student who did not fall into those categories - and as at any university there were a umber of students there on student visas.

But surely that restriction made sense?  Surely some other restrictions make sense?  A Christian group wanting to restrict members to 'practicing Christians', a lesbian group wanting to restrict membership to lesbians?

Your club's restrictions make sense for a political party club, but not for a university club.  A club such as yours is certainly legal and logical, but no university should be sponsoring it, as it does not serve the needs of the school's students.

Ditto for the Christian-only clubs, gay-only clubs, and whatnot.  These clubs serve only the interests of subsets of the university's students, and so should not be "official" clubs.  They should be allowed to meet in campus facilities just like the local ladies' flower-growing club should be, but they shouldn't be allowed to advertise meetings on bulletin boards reserved for official club news.

The "official club" title should be restricted to those clubs whose members are endowed with self-proclaimed expertise as a result of joining, like the race car building clubs, and anyone must be allowed to join those and proclaim themselves instant experts (else what future does the internet have?).

Snort.   

[Fate]

Why do gays need special dick sucking / pussy licking clubs on campus? Do that shit in the back alleys and truck stops where it belongs.

[Barrister]

Actually, as far as I know, you don't have "gay" groups usually but some kinds of "gay-straight" alliance groups - so it is rare that there is a discrimination of any kind in membership.

I think grumbler's approach is pretty sensible - if you want to restrict membership in any way, you should not be receiving the funding, period. This may be not a perfect solution (since sometimes these restrictions "make sense", as you say) but the alternatives - i.e. perfect freedom in restricting access (so you have groups like you mention) or the college (or any other authority) getting into a foggy area of deciding which restrictions make sense and which don't - are worse.

Also, I am curious why you side with the group restricting access for gays, but consider an extreme example to restrict access for Jews or blacks - how are these examples different? 

Well, I disagree - I'd rather get into the 'foggy area of which restrictions make sense and which don't'.  I think the university community as a whole is better served by having a range of groups, including those with a narrow focus.

Just going off the top of my head, I would think membership restrictions should be "restrictions necessarily tied to the legitimate purpose of the club".  A white supremacist group restricting access to blacks would not be a legitimate purpose.  A basketball group restricting access to people over 6 feet height is not necessarily tied to the group's purpose.

And from my time in government there was always some discretion on the part of the student's union to not recognize certain groups.

[alfred russel]

I would love to see gay students to join a Christian hate group en masse and vote themselves to its funds.

That seems like a good argument to support of the christian group. 

[Faeelin]

Just going off the top of my head, I would think membership restrictions should be "restrictions necessarily tied to the legitimate purpose of the club".  A white supremacist group restricting access to blacks would not be a legitimate purpose.  A basketball group restricting access to people over 6 feet height is not necessarily tied to the group's purpose.

And from my time in government there was always some discretion on the part of the student's union to not recognize certain groups.

Why does the white supremacist group not have a legitimate purpose?

[Barrister]

Just going off the top of my head, I would think membership restrictions should be "restrictions necessarily tied to the legitimate purpose of the club".  A white supremacist group restricting access to blacks would not be a legitimate purpose.  A basketball group restricting access to people over 6 feet height is not necessarily tied to the group's purpose.

And from my time in government there was always some discretion on the part of the student's union to not recognize certain groups.

Why does the white supremacist group not have a legitimate purpose?

Because they are "wilfully promoting hatred".

Now I suppose it could get fuzzier if they tried to style themselves as a "European Heritage Association", but even then I don't imagine it'd be too hard to weed out groups like that.