05/11/2012 United States (WSJ) – Last week, Tennessee legislators sent a message to Vanderbilt University: Religious liberty matters. Large majorities in both houses passed a bill to prohibit the school from interfering in the ability of student groups to select their own leaders and members, define their own doctrines and resolve their own disputes—or Vanderbilt risks losing $24 million in state funding.
The legislation follows Vanderbilt’s decision to stop recognizing campus religious organizations that require their leaders to accept certain religious beliefs on which they are founded. The Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Vanderbilt Catholic, Navigators and other groups—ministering to about 1,500 students—would effectively be moved off campus in the name of “nondiscrimination.”
Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam has stated that although he opposes Vanderbilt’s policy, he plans to veto the bill because it is “inappropriate for government to mandate the policies of a private institution.” (Thirty-six members of Congress have urged the university to reconsider, stating that its exemption of fraternities and sororities but not religious groups “suggests hostility on the part of Vanderbilt toward religious student groups.”)
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Yet today, Vanderbilt officials are restricting the liberty of the very sorts of religious folks who not only founded the school but whose followers led many of the nondiscrimination battles of 19th-century higher education.
Does Vanderbilt really want to miss out on future student leaders who will no doubt choose other schools where they can join organizations that support rather than undermine their faith? As an educator and Vanderbilt alumnus, I will no longer be able to recommend the university to Christian families in good conscience.
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