Posted on 07/27/2005 7:21:03 PM PDT by Land_of_Lincoln_John
A Christian student group filed a federal appeal on Tuesday to be reinstated at the Southern Illinois University School of Law, which revoked the group's registered status because members must pledge to adhere to Christian beliefs.
The law school's Christian Legal Society chapter filed the appeal with the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago to challenge a federal judge's July 5 decision to deny the chapter's request to have the university to re-establish the its status while its lawsuit goes forward.
SIU claims the Christian Legal Society chapter's requirement that its voting members and leaders adhere to basic Christian beliefs violates the university's affirmative action policy.
But Casey Mattox, the group's attorney, said other student organizations, including those affiliated with political parties, also expect their members to subscribe to certain beliefs and that the society is the only one being singled out.
"The goal is to have the university respect the First Amendment rights of the students and hopefully to have that happen as soon as possible," Mattox said Tuesday.
The group wanted to be reinstated before the start of the fall semester in August, but that is unlikely as the appeal is expected to take several months, Mattox said.
The law school on March 25 revoked the group's registered status, which means it can no longer use the university's facilities or name and is no longer eligible for school funding, according to the lawsuit, which was filed in April.
SIU officials referred all inquiries to the school's general counsel, Jerry Blakemore, who was unavailable for comment Tuesday.
SIU began looking into the chapter's requirements after a member of another student group, who never attended a Christian Legal Society meeting, read about its policies in a law journal and brought its practices to the attention of administrators, Mattox said. No student was ever denied a membership or leadership position within the group because of his or her religious beliefs, he said.
The Christian Legal Society, based in Annandale, Va., is a nationwide association of more than 3,400 Christian lawyers, law students, law professors and judges with chapters in more than 1,100 cities across the country, according to its Web site. The SIU chapter had fewer than 12 members, Mattox said.
The national group has filed similar lawsuits against other schools and won, but has two other ongoing cases with Arizona State University and the University of California Hastings College of Law, Mattox said.
On the Net:
Southern Illinois University School of Law
Ping
The inmates run the.....ah,, university.
later pingout.
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Christians, white males, conservatives.... those are the groups allowed to be discriminated against.
Illinois senator Dick Durbin will fix this mess.
Moral Absolutes Ping.
Disgusting leftist God hating craziness in universities. What? You're not surprised?
Freepmail me if you want on/off this pinglist.
http://moonbatcentral.com/wordpress/?p=784
Our friends over at Marathon Pundit report the fascinating news from the People’s Republic of Southern Illinois University, which has a track record of denying free speech to the politically incorrect. Thomas Ryan recently did an expose of SIU for Frontpage Mag.
A Christian student group filed a federal appeal on Tuesday to be reinstated at the Southern Illinois University School of Law, which had earlier revoked the group’s registered status because members must pledge to adhere to Christian beliefs.
The law school’s Christian Legal Society chapter petitioned a federal judge’s July 5 decision to deny the chapter’s request to have the university re-establish its status while its lawsuit goes forward. Incredibly, SIU claims the Christian Legal Society chapter’s requirement that its voting members and leaders adhere to basic Christian beliefs violates the university’s affirmative action policy. A campus group devoted to promoting jihad and terrorism would of course be permissible.
No student was ever denied a membership or leadership position within the group because of his or her religious beliefs.
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