Christian Legal Society v. Martinez

Student group tests law school's equality interests
(By Joan Biskupic, USA TODAY, April 19, 2010)

WASHINGTON " In spirited and sometimes testy exchanges, the Supreme Court struggled Monday with whether a state-run law school may refuse to recognize a religious student group that keeps out gay students and non-Christians.

"Why doesn't this all work out?" Justice Anthony Kennedy asked in frustration at one point. "If the Christian Legal Society has these beliefs, I am not so sure why people that don't agree with them want to belong to them."

The case pits a state school's interest in protecting students from bias against a group's interest in preserving its identity and message by limiting participation.

In some respects, the justices seemed divided along ideological grounds. Liberal leaning justices such as Ruth Bader Ginsburg sympathized with the anti-bias goals of the University of California Hastings College of Law, and more conservative justices such as Samuel Alito inclined toward the Christian challengers.

Kennedy appeared in his usual place in the middle of this deeply divided bench, yet he and others, such as Justice Stephen Breyer, also raised questions about whether the dispute had been sufficiently developed in lower courts to allow the justices to resolve the Christian students' claim of discrimination based on their views.

Stanford law professor Michael McConnell, representing the Christian Legal Society chapter at Hastings, argued that the campus policy of requiring groups to admit students who do not accept their message is a "frontal assault on freedom of association" under the First Amendment.

"If Hastings is correct, a student who does not even believe in the Bible is entitled to demand to lead a Christian Bible study," McConnell said, insisting that the group had been specifically targeted by Hastings.

The case began when school officials refused to recognize the group " and give it student-activity funding, meeting space and other privileges " based on the group's refusal to let gay students and non-Christians fully participate in the organization.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked McConnell whether his argument against Hastings' open-membership policy would allow groups to widely discriminate.

"Are you suggesting that if a group wanted to exclude all black people, all women, all handicapped persons," Sotomayor asked, "that a school has to accept that group and recognize it, give it funds and otherwise lend it space?"

McConnell said no, that the CLS chapter was arguing only that it should be able to keep people from fully participating based on their contrary beliefs, in this case, for example, in favor of homosexual marriage.

"Note how destructive an all-comers policy directed toward beliefs would be," McConnell added, saying that a NAACP chapter would have to allow in "a racist skinhead."

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said such contentions about "sabotage" by outsiders was not backed up by any evidence in the record.

Hastings' lawyer Gregory Garre urged the high court to uphold a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in favor of the law school. He argued that all student organizations must abide by the open-membership policy and that the Christian students were not being singled out based on their views.

Justice Antonin Scalia was suspicious of that argument. "To require this Christian society to allow atheists not just to join but to conduct Bible classes … that's crazy."

Justice Samuel Alito suggested that the Hastings policy would require a small Muslim campus group to admit "students who hate Muslims … and want to take over that group."

A ruling in the case is likely by the end of June, when the justices usually recess for the summer. If a court majority decides that the record in the case is lacking, it is likely to send the case back for further proceedings before then.