The Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment offers protection for religious individuals and organizations to act without interference from the government. The clause protects various minority religions and ensures that the freedoms of these groups will be protected in courts of law. One area where the application of the Free Exercise Clause is under debate is on public university campuses.
Last week, Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte signed two bills that aim to protect individual freedoms on public university campuses in the state. The new law prohibits universities from denying resources to religious, political, or ideological student organizations. This law will even apply to organizations that may hold views that other students find offensive. While potentially offensive organizations can be protected, the Universities, however, can prohibit discrimination targeting particular students. The new law would also ban the limitation of speech to “free speech zones,” which are designated areas on campus that students can share their views on, only after they are approved by University officials. As I discussed in my blog post from February, free speech zone reservations at Universities can sometimes be riddled with various issues, including only granting approval to students speaking about topics Universities agree with. Under these new bills, individuals who say their free speech is being violated by the university can sue for “damages between $2,000 and $75,000” (US News).
Opponents of this bill say that, “the measure would allow groups to receive university funding even if they uphold views that exclude or target certain students, such as members of the LGBTQ community” (US News). On Monday April 15th, people gathered at the Montana Capitol steps to express opposition and spread awareness about various bills moving through legislature. While their main focus was not on the University free speech bills, their message was clear with words from Democratic Sen. Bryce Bennett of Missoula, the first openly gay man elected to the Montana Legislature saying, “The folks in the building behind me were hoping they could steal your rights and no one would notice,” (AP News), as well as messages on signs with one reading: “I support the separation of church and hate” (AP News). It is clear that although the protesters were not explicitly protesting against the University bills, they would not support the allowance and opportunity these bills give to religious groups that claim anti-LGBTQ beliefs to be central aspects of their practice.
When it comes to the bills signed in by the Governor of Montana, the central question is: does the Free Exercise Clause protect allowing religious, political, or ideological student organizations from receiving resources from public universities even if they hold views that other students may view as discriminatory or offensive.
I agree with the signing of these bills and I do believe that the funding of religious, political, and ideological student organizations should be protected under the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. The first reason I believe these organizations should be funded even if they have potentially offensive beliefs is because I believe there needs to be neutrality towards religion when there is funding for secular organizations. If the bill only allowed student organizations that are not “offensive” to be funded, then there would not be neutrality towards religion. In the case Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia, the Court held in a 5-4 decision that “the University could not stop all funding of religious speech while continuing to fund an atheistic perspective. The exclusion of several views is as offensive to free speech as the exclusion of only one” (Oyez). With this in mind, the Montana bills are important in protecting the funding of all student organizations, including those which are religious.
A second case that provides reasoning for why the bills should be passed is Christian Legal Society v. Martinez and its dissenting opinion. In this case the Court ruled in a 5-4 decision to support the all-comers policy as a reasonable practice. The Court ruled against what I am arguing, but the decision was a narrow one. The dissent made a strong argument including the comment from Justice Alito where he highlights that the student forum claims to “promote a diversity of viewpoints among registered student organizations, including viewpoints on religion and human sexuality” (564), but without the allowance of groups that only allow members that agree with their policies this is not truly what can happen.
In the context of Montana, I believe that these bills are crucial in protecting freedoms on college campuses and they are protected by the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. I believe that on college campuses there should be equal funding for student organizations, even if some of the organizations have inspired beliefs that are seen as offensive to other people. For many religions there are beliefs that are extremely important to them but are offensive to others. I do not think that having offensive viewpoints means openly discriminating to people, and the bills put forth by the Governor acknowledge the Universities right to prohibit discrimination towards individual students. I think college campuses are a place where a diversity of viewpoints should be encouraged as they are areas for students to explore different ideas that they have not had exposure to in their lives. As seen in the two differing Court opinions highlighted earlier, this topic is a difficult area and there are arguments to support both sides of the debate.
2 comments:
I agree with the author that all viewpoints should be welcomed, even if they are offensive. It's not right to strictly without someone's voice, simply because what they say might not be agreed upon by the majority. I believe this is the case until what they are saying is inciting violence, however, the question is how much of the violence falls onto the person saying the message. This is a slippery slope when trying to determined what is too offensive. This is probably a question that apps were asking themselves when deciding on what to do with Donald Trump's social media accounts, when they eventually banned them.
I agree with the signing of this bill in order to prevent an establishment issue within public universities. The post mentioned how organizations needed to receive approval from the school to speak about certain topics. This causes the university to control the speech of students and can further violate the Free Exercise Clause. There is a limit to free speech such as you can't yell fire in a theater, but students should be able to talk about their religious, political, or any other ideological perspectives freely and they can do so without inciting violence. Emotions are subjective because it is difficult to rule what is offensive and what is not.
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