Administrative Responses to Current Issues Regarding Spirituality In Higher Education

Orange Coast College,October 24, 2001

On, September 20th, without a hearing, Orange Coast College suspended Professor Kenneth W. Hearlson. Hearlson teaches contemporary politics at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa,  California. On September 18, in a lecture on contemporary politics, he argued that silence on crimes against Christians and Jews in the Middle  East was consent to terrorism. Several Muslim students complained to Vice President Robert Dees that Hearlson had called them terrorists. Other students in his class, however, confirmed that Hearlson was lecturing on moral consistency, not on the character of any students. This case has not been resolved. Read the Chronicle of Higher Education Here. Read the Los Angeles Times Here.

Intervarsity Multi Ethnic Christian Fellowship banned at Rutgers University; InterVaristy Christian Fellowship Threatened with Similar Punishment at UNC, December 30, 2002.

Rutgers University and UNC-Chapel Hill have both denied Christian student groups that right to take into account religious beliefs when selecting religious leaders. A lawsuit was immediately filed. The next day, UNC folded its hand. Chancellor James Moeser ordered that IVCF be allowed to continue to operate as a official recognized student organization restoring, for now, the rights of religious liberty, free expression, and free association to the IVCF at this public institution. In April 2003, RutgersUniversity settled with the group, and the students will be allowed to organize on Rutgers campus in a manner consistent with the purposes of their freedom to associate on the basis of their shared beliefs.  Read the Chronicle of Higher Education Here

Professor Mike Adams on Religious Discrimination in Higher Education, June 27, 2003

In a recent column, Mike Adams, professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington, raises serious questions about religious liberty, legal equality, and free association at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Adams argues that UNC employs a double standard against religious students, denying them the right to associate on terms of their own lawful choosing. Read Professor Adam's column here: Read Professor Adam's Column Here.

Purdue Recognizes Campus Group's Religious Liberty, November 19, 2003.

At Purdue University, a public university in Indiana, administrators told an association of Christian women, living together in a Cooperative Residence that the groups owns, and they would either have to add a "non-discrimination" clause to their constitution or risk losing their status as a group with campus rights and, indeed, their very home. The clause would have required them not to consider sex or religious beliefs when choosing members, effectively prohibiting this Christian women's group from deciding to be exclusively Christian and female. Several letters were written to Purdue's president, Martin Jischke, pointing out that the First Amendment's protections for voluntary association, freedom of expression, and freedom of religion forbid public intuitions from forcing religious groups to abide by such polices. The letters reminded the university "a Christian organization has a right to be Christian." President Jischke responded quickly that this and other religious groups would be exempted from this policy.

Philosophy Professor Punished for Expressing Religious Beliefs, February 5, 2004

LakelandCommunity College near Cleveland, Ohio, has stripped a philosophy professor of his classes for refusing to hide his religious identity from students. Dr. James Tuttle, a Catholic philosopher, was threatened with dismissal for making statements on his syllabi and in class that disclosed his religious faith and its effect on his views on ethics and philosophy. Read the WorldNetDaily Account Here.Read the Wall Street Journal Here

Gonzaga Rejects Christian Groups, March  10, 2004

In the Spring of 2003, GonzagaUniversity's president, himself a Jesuit priest, has permitted the School of Law's Student Bar Association (SBA) to deny recognition to a Christian student organization for being Christian. According to the SBA, which acts as an agent of the university in the matter of student group recognition, the Gonzaga Pro-Life Law Caucus's requirement that its leadership be Christian is "discriminatory." In March 2004 another Christian group, the Christian Legal Society, also failed to gain recognition from the law school's Student Bar Association (SBA). Gonzaga's president, Father Robert J. Spitzer, S.J., has failed to intervene on behalf of either group despite Gonzaga Law's promise to be a "welcoming environment for students of all religious backgrounds or secular moral traditions." Read the Washington Times Here.