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More universities say InterVarsity must allow non-Christian leaders
Less than two weeks ago, Weblog noted that Harvard University was withholding a grant to the Harvard-Radcliffe Christian Fellowship because the group required that its leaders be Christians. Such a policy, the school's Undergraduate Council said, violated anti-discrimination policies. At the time, Weblog said the case was odd. It's already time to rescind that.

Papers today report that Rutgers University and the University of North Carolina have also taken steps to remove official recognition and funding from their InterVarsity Christian Fellowship chapters for the same reason—only Christians may lead the Christian organization.

"Your group does not allow full participation 'without regard to … religion  … ' as mandated by our Application for Official University Recognition," Jonathan E. Curtis, UNC-Chapel Hill's assistant director for student activities and organizations wrote to the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship in a December 10 letter. "Consequently I am writing to notify you that you will need to modify the wording of your charter, or I will have no choice but to revoke your University recognition." Curtis gave the group until January 31 to do so, and reportedly gave the same ultimatum to two other Christian groups on campus

Rutgers University removed official recognition from the InterVarsity Multi-Ethnic Christian Fellowship as a "registered student organization" in September. Yesterday, the group sued the school.

"How can we ensure the group has a Christian mission without some assurance the leaders are Christian?" said David French, attorney for the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), which filed the lawsuit (with support from the Alliance Defense Fund) on the group's behalf. FIRE is also threatening to sue UNC-Chapel Hill.

Mark Stern, attorney for the American Jewish Congress, says Rutgers' actions are clearly illegal. "The notion, for example, that I [as a Jew] would have a right to be the head of a Christian group is absurd," he said. "After the Boy Scout decision, this is a total no-brainer."

The issue, says InterVarsity area director Laura Vellenga, is freedom of speech. "It is in our best interest to throw open our membership to anybody in the community, but our leadership is a different matter," she told the Newark Star-Ledger.

Scott Vermillion, staff director for the four UNC InterVarsity chapters, told the Raleigh News & Observer the same thing. "We're saying, 'If you're going to be a leader of this organization, you need to believe in what this organization stands for.' We're not trying to keep anybody out. We're just trying to keep InterVarsity InterVarsity." "We're not a belligerent group, but we do want access to campus and to funding," Vermillion said.

But FIRE's press release is clearly belligerent. "For years now, American universities have engaged in a ferocious assault on the American principles and basic human rights of freedom of conscience, religious liberty, and the First Amendment," FIRE president Alan Charles Kors says in it. "These universities … seem to think they have the power to demand allegiance to the values and beliefs of current academic administrators. It is an intolerant and intolerable outrage."

The Star-Ledger couldn't reach anyone at Rutgers for comment, but the News & Observer heard from Dean L. Bresciani, UNC-Chapel Hill's interim vice chancellor for student affairs. "We have no intention of kicking the group off campus, and we're prepared to work very hard to avoid that scenario," he said. "We're feeling confident we can find some solution. We just have to find a way to get around the legal hurdle."

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December (Web-only) 2002, Vol. 46