Last week, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued an injunction compelling UF administrators to officially recognize an organization that openly discriminates against people based on their religion or irreligion, as the case may be, as well as on the basis of gender.
The Beta Upsilon Chi fraternity, also known as Brothers Under Christ, requested official recognition as a student organization in 2007. Officially sanctioned student organizations and clubs receive benefits, including Student Government funding, the right to advertise on campus and the use of university facilities.
The Center for Student Activities and Involvement - the official administrators of UF student clubs - denied BYX's request for recognition last year because the group mandates that its members be Christians and bars women from becoming members. Both counts, the religious requirement and the banning of women from joining BYX, stand in violation of UF's code of conduct for recognition of student organizations. The code states that student clubs must be open to all students, not just the Christian male contingent.
In response to this egregious miscarriage of justice, otherwise known as "tolerance" and "pluralism," BYX sued UF for … religious and gender discrimination? You read that right. An organization that unabashedly discriminates against non-Christians and women sued UF for religious and gender discrimination. How's that for irony?
Yet as much as we'd like to focus our incisive wit and sardonic commentary on this delectable morsel of sheer absurdity, we must instead turn to the serious consequences of endorsing discrimination in The Gator Nation.
College is a place for the no-holds-barred, free exchange of ideas. It is perhaps the last remaining venue for this once-prevalent American pastime. The plethora of ethnicities, nationalities, religions and most importantly, ideas, theories and philosophies existing on any given college campus is what makes a college education the bulwark of democracy and a free society.
If one backward-thinking group of students is permitted to clog up the conduit of diversity, tolerance and plurality that is so critical to the vitality of the college experience, the result will be akin to opening a Pandora's Box of bigotry and exclusion.
If Christian males can exclude all others from membership in a student organization, what's preventing the Ku Klux Klan, Neo-Nazis or any number of other misguided, unenlightened bigots from coming to campus to start their own officially sanctioned student organization?
We respect BYX's First Amendment rights to free assembly and free exercise of religion. And their presence on campus is part of that panoply of pluralism that makes UF such an exciting and intellectually stimulating place. But the First Amendment is multifaceted. Alongside the free exercise of religion is the freedom from the establishment of religion - that is, the separation of church and state. Overtly Christian organizations should not be receiving public funding to promote their religious beliefs. UF should be no more obliged to provide BYX funding and facilities than to censor their religious speech. Neither would be constitutionally or morally acceptable.
We hope that the courts will find in favor of the administration and prevent discrimination from taking root at our beloved university.
