Double Standard at Washington University, Saint Louis

Foundation for Indvidual Rights in Education ^ | 11 Oct 02 | FIRE

[white trash redneck]

Double Standard at Washington University, Saint Louis

October 9, 2002

ST. LOUIS, MO—Washington University in Saint Louis, under Chancellor Mark Stephen Wrighton and Law School Dean Joel Seligman, knowingly has permitted an official University agency to deny recognition of a student organization because of the group’s refusal to adopt the University’s political view of the group’s moral mission.

"Washington University’s chancellor has condoned intolerable restrictions on freedom of conscience, freedom of association, and freedom of speech. Washington University, known historically as a great center of inquiry and debate, is acting as a politically orthodox campus that denies intellectual pluralism and diversity," said Alan Charles Kors, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE).

Last month, Washington University’s Student Bar Association (SBA), which the University Chancellor has authorized to act officially in these matters, inappropriately interfered with the rights of Law Students Pro-Life, a student group that sought permission to exist at the University. The SBA twice rejected the constitution of Law Students Pro-Life, a group organized by and for students at Washington University School of Law (WUSL). The student group was an association organized to advocate "pro-life principles as applied to abortion, euthanasia, and assisted suicide." As a result of the SBA ruling, Law Students Pro-Life is disqualified from receiving any SBA funds, despite the fact that all of its members pay WUSL’s mandatory student activity fee. It also is ineligible for student office space, for a campus mail address, for tax-exempt status, and for listing in the admissions brochure.

Joel Seligman, J.D.

In a September 9, 2002 letter of rejection to Law Students Pro-Life, SBA President Elliott Friedman termed "the catching issue" what he labeled "the narrowness of your group’s interests and goals." The SBA "felt that the organization was not touching on all possible Pro Life issues" because it did not have an "anti-death penalty" position in its constitution. "In short," Kors noted, "Law Students Pro-Life had the wrong conscience." SBA rejected the group’s reapplication on September 23, without comment.

On September 30, 2002, FIRE wrote to Chancellor Wrighton, requesting that WUSL avoid public embarrassment by taking self-corrective measures:

"Despite meeting all of the requirements stated in the student government’s Approval for Student Organizations By-Laws, Law Students Pro-Life has twice been officially denied the right to exist as a recognized student organization....The suggestion that Law Students Pro-Life adopt an anti-death penalty stance violates the group’s right to organize according to its own principles. It is an attempt to coerce them to espouse beliefs that they may not want to address, or that may even violate their deepest conviction—No institution seriously committed to open discourse would tell students what issues they cannot address; let alone, what issues they must address." A meeting between administrators and Law Students Pro-Life, after FIRE’s letter, failed to resolve this unfairness.

"This case," said Kors, "reflects both dreary intolerance and a breathtaking double standard." FIRE’s letter noted that WUSL rightly had recognized freedom of association by its approval of several organizations that various individuals might find "narrow": the Jewish Law Society, committed to "fulfilling the needs of Jewish students"; the Black Law Students Association, committed "to orient, assist and otherwise support African American students"; the Washington University Environmental Law Society, committed to engaging the "intersection of law and the environment"; OUTLAW, committed to fostering an environment that is "supportive, positive, and safe for individuals of sexual and gender diversity"; and the Golf Club, whose mission is golf. "Put more simply," FIRE wrote, "your agent’s ruling against Law Students Pro-Life imposes a disability that you do not—and would not—impose upon those of different belief and persuasion."

FIRE also reminded Chancellor Wrighton that by allowing the University’s decision to stand, he ignored WUSL’s promise, stated in its 2002-2003 Parent’s Handbook: WUSL "is committed to the principles—of freedom of religion and speech." "If this group had held views which passed WUSL’s political litmus tests," Kors noted, "I suspect strongly that Chancellor Wrighton and his deans would have acted immediately to correct this indecency. He now is fully informed of this act of official intolerance, and it is his duty to fulfill his moral and legal obligations."

Meanwhile, as Chancellor Wrighton maintains his silence, the students will continue to push for their rightful recognition by the SBA.

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education is a nonprofit educational foundation. FIRE unites civil rights and civil liberties leaders, scholars, journalists, and public intellectuals across the political and ideological spectrum on behalf of individual rights, freedom of expression, freedom of conscience, and due process on our nation’s campuses. FIRE’s efforts to preserve liberty at Washington University and elsewhere can be seen by visiting www.thefire.org.

Contact:
Mark Stephen Wrighton, Chancellor: 314-935-5100; wrighton@wustl.edu
Alan Charles Kors, FIRE: 215-717-3473; fire@thefire.org
Dean Joel Seligman: 314-935-6420; seligman@wulaw.wustl.edu
Elliott Friedman, SBA President: emfriedm@wulaw.wustl.edu
David Hacker, Law Students Pro-Life: djhacker@wulaw.wustl.edu

[white trash redneck]

Regardless of how you come down on the abortion issue, if you're on FR, you can't be happy about university administration censorship of a conventionally conservative position (abortion today, maybe gun rights, or affirmative action, or the war on terrorism tomorrow).

Let the jerks at Wash U know how you feel.

[Hobsonphile]

Bump for later ping.

[TheEngineer]

Here is a list of their law school student organizations...

http://law.wustl.edu/Organizations/

Notice the group OUTLAW. This looks like the club for gay and transexual law students. They recently held a protest against the on-campus presence of military recruiters (because they claim the military discriminates against gays).

I wonder how Student Bar Association rationalizes their recognition of the Butt Pirates' Club?

[Desdemona]

Please, write to the following people at this address:

Washington University
One Brookings Drive
Campus Box ________
Saint Louis, Missouri 63130

Mark S. Wrighton, Chancellor
Chancellors Office Box 1192

for alumni (like me)
David T. Blasingame
Vice Chancellor for Alumni and Development Programs
Box 1101

M. Frederic Volkmann
Vice Chancellor for Public Affairs
Box 1177

John F. McDonnell
Chairman of the Board of Trustees
Box 1081

William H. Danforth
Chancellor Emeritus
Vice Chairman of the Board of Trustees
Box 1081

David W. Kemper
Vice Chairman of the Board of Trustees
Box 1081

Please see www.wustl.edu for the full list of the board of trustees. The Dean of the School of Law is in favor of allowing the group, so don't bug him, please.

I hope I didn't break any rules.

[Endeavor]

ping

[GovernmentShrinker]

I'm not convinced that's what's going on here. The school has 225 students and 29 extracurricular organizations. The "discriminating against conservatives" argument doesn't hold water when you look at the list of the recognized organizations here http://law.wustl.edu/Organizations/

There is a Federalist Society chapter (conservative) but no National Lawyers' Guild chapter (very leftist). The gay group's mission statement is extremely vague (in fact it doesn't mention "gay" at all, but rather "sexual and gender diversity"), but its site does mention staging a protest last semester "when the law school suspended our nondiscrimination policy and allowed Army and Navy recruiters-employers who openly discriminate based on sexual orientation-access to the career services office". Not a single one of the recognized groups appears to exist to explicitly champion a single position on a controversial issue.

[GovernmentShrinker]

Read OUTLAW's mission statement though. It looks as if they were required to be very broad and vague in order to get recognition. Not too different from the pro-life group being asked to include the death penalty in its scope.

[Desdemona]

Before you make statements like that, please, consider spending some time on that campus. I saw signs in the student center during one election cycle that said "Friends Don't Let Friends Vote Republican." Nobody took them down. At least once a month, there were messages written in chalk on the sidewalks advocating homosexuality and pro-choice. There was one group that called itself the patriarchy and was in favor of men's rights that was banned. The last time I was on the campus was to pick up a transcript, and the leftist propaganda was thick as ever.

Outside of Bill Danforth (Jack Danforth's older brother), who was chancellor for 25 years, I can't name anyone who was openly republican. And I was closely involved on that campus and at the med school for over 10 years. I did a lot of keeping my mouth shut.

[TheEngineer]

Read OUTLAW's mission statement though. It looks as if they were required to be very broad and vague in order to get recognition. Not too different from the pro-life group being asked to include the death penalty in its scope.

I hear what you're saying. But maybe they, as a group, are not opposed to the death penalty. Within (my) the Catholic Church, a lot of the liberal priests rationalize their endorsement of the liberalism (or their lack of endorsement of conservatism) with this: Conservatives are against abortion, but they are often for the death penalty. Vice-versa with liberals. In their minds, they equate the killing of millions of babies per year with the killing of a handful of murderers every year. So somehow, this makes them sleep well at night not speaking out against the Bill Clintons, Ted Kennedys, Dick Gephardts and Tom Daschles. So, when I heard the SBA's rationale, it was deja-vu all over again. This is standard liberal stuff.

Question... Do you think they would have asked a pro-abortion club if they were going to add support for killing death-row inmates to its agenda? I don't think so.

Perhaps it would be better to eliminate all clubs, rather than have a bunch of libs on the SBA critiquing their mission statements.

[GovernmentShrinker]

I suspect the absence of a pro-choice group is due to pro-choicers being told that their issues are already covered by the Women's, Social Work, and Family Law groups. If you look at the list of groups and their web pages, it doesn't appear that the SBA is recognizing any narrow take-a-single-position-on-a-single issue group.

[GovernmentShrinker]

MOST campuses are buried in leftist propaganda. But that doesn't mean the SBA's decision in this case reflects a leftist agenda. There is no pro-choice group recognized, and I seriously doubt that the "patriarchy" group had recognition before its banning. No one is telling these students that they can't engage in any pro-life speech or activities on campus -- just that they aren't going to be an officially recognized group. It's not a bad thing to draw the line on official recognition of splinter groups. When I was an undergrad at a lefty women's college, the student government had a policy of "recognizing" virtually any group that asked for recognition. At one point this translated into no fewer than 8 separate feminist groups, many with an active membership of no more than 2 or 3 three students. Anytime a couple of people disagreed with any part of the agenda of a group they were involved in, they ran off and got themselves recognized as a new group. What I'd like to know is whether these pro-life students have attempted to conduct some of their activities under the umbrella of any existing groups, and been silenced by those groups. If they haven't tried, or haven't been silenced, then they're asking for special treatment which is not being afforded to any other small group of students which wants to form a recognized group devoted to a single position on a single issue.

[Michael2001]

I think a freeping is in order

[FreedominJesusChrist]

"Regardless of how you come down on the abortion issue, if you're on FR, you can't be happy about university administration censorship of a conventionally conservative position (abortion today, maybe gun rights, or affirmative action, or the war on terrorism tomorrow). Let the jerks at Wash U know how you feel."

That is why it is well worth it to pay extra in order to attend a private college or university, that is less likely to censor conservative political views.

[white trash redneck]

Wash U is private.

[Hobsonphile]

Leftism on Campus ping!

If you would like to be added to the Leftism on Campus ping list, please notify me via FReep-mail.

Regards...

[Lizard_King]

DISCLAIMER: I work for the organization, FIRE ( www.thefire.org ), mentioned in this posting, so I am obviously not a fence sitter on this issue. whitetrash, thanks for the free press :)


That's correct, Wash U is private; there is no LEGAL argument for them denying Pro Life students recognition for whatever reason. However, there is a strong moral argument for an institution that claims to be a liberal arts school with no political agenda to forward to respect the first amendment.

Were this to occur in a public university, it would be a straightforward case of a violation of freedom of conscience on the part of the administration (by supporting the SAC's decision), and the university would be in deep trouble if we took them to court. 9/10 in cases at public u's, there is no need for that and a simple letter to the President making clear what they are setting themselves up for takes care of the situation. Other than that, public exposure takes care of the bulk of the rest, because the administrators cannot do in public what they do in private, especially once trustees start phoning in complaints.

I think that freedom of speech and conscience is an ideologically neutral issue; if student groups are going to be funded, the only valid reason for placing demands on a group's mission is if redundancy exists between it and an already funded group. By and large, on college campuses these days we find ourselves defending conservative and/or Christian groups from left-wing (tacitly or overtly) administrations and student groups, which predominate in the College environment. I am willing to bet that there is a strong ideological element in the SAC's demands on this group, and I think the example of a pro-abortion legal group being forced to support the death penalty as well is valid (and equally reprehensible).

[TheEngineer]

In your experience with the FIRE organization, with these sorts of things, do you see more on-campus discrimination against liberals or conservatives?

[Captain Kirk]

I am pro-choice but I think this ruling represents an outrageous double standard. We need to call these bozos until the phone rings off the hook.

[AEMILIUS PAULUS]

This type of administrative conduct just keeps happening. Doesn't it! My! My! My! Wonder how to stop it?

[Lizard_King]

I don't have any numbers on hand, but since the foundation of the organization in the late 90's there have always been far more arbitrary persecutions of conservative groups than liberal groups (although after 9/11 there was a strong [brief] flare up of anger and internal judicial action directed towards both sides of the argument by students and administration alike).

The other big category of targets are satirical writers/newspapers who often have no choice in their line of work but to mock many of the absolutely ridiculous liberal activists, and there the double standard comes flamingly into play. At UC San Diego we recently had a case where a local student humour rag, the Koala, was threatened with all sorts of irrational punishments for disrupting a local open meeting of the MeCHA chapter on campus (marxist mexican/chicano students with anti-american, anti semitic stance as reflected in their absurd touchy-feely stance mixed in with radical leftism, and the ridiculous paper associated with the MeCHA movement http://aztlan.net/ ). Of course, in this case "disrupting" consisted of the Koala members taking photographs at an OPEN student meeting, being recognized by the local MeCHA folks, and asked to stop taking pictures and leave, which they did, grudgingly, no disruption, meeting as usual. When the MeCHA people were lampooned in the next issue using those photographs, they went off the hook with allegations of disruption, racial harassment, etc, and the Koala was nearly shut down for the semester as a result (!) except for our intervention and the public pressure that resulted (especially since UCSD is a PUBLIC institution bound to respect the 1st amendment).

The double standard was made most clear, because when a few years past the local MeCHA publication had been the target of controversy because it published both an article demanding that hispanic INS workers be shot as race traitors and a photograph with Gov. Pete Wilson and a bullseye superimposed on his head. In that incident, the same university president in charge now came out categorically in defense of the first amendment rights of those students to use public funds to distribute their filth.

The pattern continues, against Christian groups, conservative groups, or simply anyone who disagrees with or mocks the campus "party line". I am fortunate that I attend one of the least repressive ivies, because at most of the others simply offending a person can bring you up for harassment charges and judicial proceedings. I am sure if FIRE had been founded fifty years ago it would have been mostly left wingers that we would be defending, but never has there been a repressive wave in universities like this one...it is ironic that the very radicals who benefitted the most from freedom of speech in their youth in the 60's deny their students the same right now that they are in charge.