Should a public college be allowed to strip a Christian student group of its official status because that group insists its leaders actually be Christian? That's the question playing out right now in federal court in Binghamton, New York, where two campus ministries, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship and Campus Bible Fellowship, have each sued SUNY Broome Community College over the same policy.
For years, both groups were recognized student organizations at SUNY Broome. That recognition isn't just a formality. It comes with access to meeting rooms, student activity funding, and the ability to recruit at campus events. Both groups' constitutions require their officers (the students who lead Bible studies, prayer, and worship) to personally affirm the Christian faith. Regular membership, though, is open to anyone, no matter what they believe.
SUNY Broome decided that leadership requirement violated its nondiscrimination policy, which says recognized clubs can't exclude students from leadership roles based on religion. When the groups wouldn't drop the requirement, the college pulled their official status. InterVarsity filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York on August 21, and Campus Bible Fellowship followed on September 3. Both are represented by religious liberty law firms (Becket for InterVarsity, Alliance Defending Freedom for Campus Bible Fellowship), and both lawsuits argue the college's policy violates their First Amendment rights to free exercise of religion, free speech, and freedom of association.
This isn't totally uncharted legal territory, but it's also far from settled. The closest thing the Supreme Court has said on the subject is Christian Legal Society v. Martinez (2010), which upheld a public law school's "all comers" policy requiring every recognized student group to accept any student as a member or leader, as long as the policy applied the same way to every group on campus. SUNY Broome will almost certainly lean on that case. But the clubs' lawyers point to something important: they claim the policy isn't actually neutral, that other, nonreligious student organizations at SUNY Broome are allowed to restrict their own leadership in ways these Christian groups aren't. If that turns out to be true, this stops looking like a neutral rule applied evenly and starts looking like a policy that quietly singles out religious groups, which is a much harder thing for a public college to defend.
There's also a separate issue worth thinking about: expressive association. A campus ministry exists to teach and model a particular faith. Making it accept leaders who don't share that faith doesn't just affect private worship. It can genuinely change what the group is. That's close to the reasoning the Supreme Court used when it let the Boy Scouts exclude a gay scoutmaster in Boy Scouts of America v. Dale (2000), on the idea that forcing an organization to include certain people can distort its whole message.
Here's where I come down on this. SUNY Broome has a real interest in making sure its recognized clubs aren't discriminatory, but a policy that forces a religious group to accept leaders who reject its core beliefs asks too much. There's a meaningful difference between membership and leadership. No one is being kept out of InterVarsity's meetings or told they can't hear its message or even push back on it. What's being asked is that the people running the group, the ones actually teaching its beliefs, believe what they're teaching. A vegan club shouldn't have to let a committed carnivore lead its cooking demos, and a Christian ministry shouldn't have to let someone who rejects Christianity teach its Bible studies. That's not exclusion for its own sake. It's what the group needs to keep being the thing it is.
The more evidence there is that SUNY Broome enforces this rule unevenly (tolerating leadership restrictions from some clubs while targeting religious ones), the weaker its Martinez defense gets, since Martinez only protects policies that are genuinely neutral and apply to everyone. Courts have sided with religious groups in similar disputes before, including InterVarsity cases at Wayne State University and the University of Iowa. Given that history and what's been alleged here, I'd expect these plaintiffs to have a real shot, though a hearing on InterVarsity's request for a preliminary injunction is still ahead this fall, so nothing is decided yet.
Sources:
Christian Post, "NY college faces another lawsuit from Christian club": https://www.christianpost.com/news/ny-college-faces-another-lawsuit-from-christian-club.html
Worthy News, "Christian Club Sues New York College Over Rule For Choosing Its Leaders": https://www.worthynews.com/117577-christian-club-sues-new-york-college-over-rule-for-choosing-its-leaders
Deseret News, "A New York college said a Christian club must let non-Christians lead prayer. Now they're suing": https://www.deseret.com/politics/2026/09/03/lawsuit-filed-against-suny-broome-over-christian-prayer-group/
Christianity Daily, "Christian Campus Ministry Sues SUNY Broome After Club Recognition": https://www.christianitydaily.com/news/christian-campus-ministry-sues-suny-broome-after-club-recognition.html
Oyez, Christian Legal Society Chapter v. Martinez: https://www.oyez.org/cases/2009/08-1371
Oyez, Boy Scouts of America v. Dale: https://www.oyez.org/cases/1999/99-699
1 comment:
I completely agree with your standing on the case. While I understand the university's interest in preventing discrimination in campus-affiliated clubs, I don't think that a simple requirement relating to the very basis of the club is discriminatory. I like your point about there being a significant difference between leadership and membership. For a club that is based around christianity, I do not think that it is unrealistic to expect the leaders of this club to hold said beliefs close to themselves. That being said, I do think that the club should absolutely continue to allow those with all beliefs, opposing or not, to at least be members.
Post a Comment