Posted on 05/13/2016 5:10:28 AM PDT by Kaslin
Ruth Bader Ginsburg was wrong. When she wrote the majority opinion in CLS v. Martinez she assured us that concerns over the erosion of freedom of association on our nation’s campuses were overstated. If students perceived that their free association rights were abridged because they could not control their group membership they could simply forego the official recognition process and meet off campus. Sure, it might be inconvenient. But at least it would provide a safe haven for students wishing to control their group membership and manage their internal affairs without administrative interference.
Some will recall that the Christian Legal Society brought its case to the Supreme Court after campus officials told them it was “discriminatory” to have belief and behavioral requirements for its members. The Court sided with the university because their administrators claimed to have an “all comers” policy, which forced all university clubs to have membership open to everyone regardless of belief or behavior. When Ginsburg suggested that clubs that did not like the policy could simply meet off campus she was effectively telling them to go sit in the back of the bus.
Despite its narrow application to schools with all-comers policies, CLS v. Martinez was dangerous for at least two reasons:
1). The ruling allowed public university administrators to violate student free association rights – provided they did it to everyone, rather than targeting certain groups. With one stroke of the pen, the Supremes stated that it would be wrong to violate the free association rights of just one group. With another stroke of the pen, the Supremes ruled that it would somehow be better if universities did it to all groups “equally.” This is legal nonsense. The law may be an ass. But it should never be that much of an ass.
2) Perhaps the most dangerous aspect of the Martinez ruling is that it undercut our nation’s long- standing tradition of respect for freedom of association as a cultural value. (Does anyone remember Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville?).
As I write this column I happen to be sitting in a hotel lobby near the campus of Vanderbilt University. Here at Vanderbilt, an “all comers” policy was implemented in the wake of the Martinez opinion. This action was undertaken despite the fact that the opinion did not actually apply to private universities.
Remember that Martinez only told public universities what they could do without violating the First Amendment. It did not tell private universities what they should do. At least it did not tell them explicitly. But saying that all-comers policies are not unconstitutional also sends the message that they are not otherwise objectionable.
Without question, Martinez affirmed a new definition of tolerance that now permeates the campus culture. Under this new definition of tolerance there is no distinction between different types of discrimination. It is all the same – whether along the lines of race or sex or belief. And it all must be condemned equally. The new tolerance demands unanimity in defense of diversity.
Therefore, it comes as no surprise that Harvard University just announced that members of independent, single-sex, off-campus organizations are about to be blacklisted from its Rhodes and Marshall scholarships. They will also be banned from leadership positions in on-campus organizations and athletic teams. Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust is fully committed to the new blacklist. She says the blacklisting policy is necessary to foster “inclusion” and “address deeply rooted gender attitudes.”
Note the language Faust uses. She is not targeting behavior. The off-campus groups have not “done” anything wrong. She is rooting out attitudes. People in these organizations have the “wrong” attitudes and she wants to ensure that everyone on campus has the “right” attitudes. Note that this is all done in the name of postmodern conceptions of “inclusion.” If people persist in having the “wrong” attitudes the answer is not education. The answer is excluding them from educational opportunities.
So what are we to make of these seemingly glaring contradictions? On the one hand, the all-comers policies seem to stand for the principle that we should not have rules that discriminate or exclude people from groups on the basis of belief. On the other hand, the blacklists clearly exclude people of the basis of “deeply rooted attitudes” about gender.
At first glance this is all about postmodernism. The administrators don’t like absolute truth so they tell student organizations that one belief is just is good as the next. Thus, they cannot be allowed to “discriminate.” And the assault on single-sex organizations seems to reflect the same worldview. People don’t have essential characteristics. Gender differences are socially constructed and ultimately meaningless. So the distinctions are banned altogether.
In reality this is just another Faustian bargain. Like the Vanderbilt all-comers policy, the Harvard blacklist is just a grab for power. Administrators who have power advance these initiatives it in order to get more control over a rapidly shrinking marketplace of ideas.
These people never really believed that all beliefs are equal. They believe that some ideas are more equal than others. They also believe that their ideas are the most equal of all. This is especially true when the subject is equality.
In the end, these administrators will succeed in gaining a full monopoly in the marketplace of ideas. But they will have sold their souls in exchange for power. In the process, the word “university” has become another meaningless construct.
Another example of little socialist communist theifdoms in a larger socialist communist thiefdom within a free nation all working against its belief system morals and foundations. Taking liberties afforded them to destroy it from within
Later
Just think:
Most of our future ‘leaders’ are trained in these insane asylums.
No ping for Mike Adams fans?
Of course, all of this is only about sex.
Pertaining to sexuality only the principle that there are no principles is valid. Building upon the no sexual principles rule any sexual principle other than the no sexual principles rule is a violation of the free and unfettered sexual expression principle.
The globalists envision the application of the law of the jungle, first on our university campuses, then in our kindergartens.
They are succeeding. Adolescent sexuality is a free for all in our urban and suburban communities. Under the rubric of enlightenment all forms of sexuality/promiscuity are preferred activity for a preponderance of our adolescents. They are, in the main, sacrilegious libertines given over entirely to libidinal interests.
Liberal, meet jihad, the fullest expression of your ideals. Domination, slavery and mutilation to follow.
But there are groups on college campuses which are discriminatory -sports teams. For example, can men who identify as women compete for scholarships reserved for women’s teams? Are men who identify as women even play on women’s sports teams?
Unless transgendered persons can partake in any and all activities formerly confined to one gender, there is no equality.
Remember the case of Rachel Dolezol, an NAACP chapter president who identified as black. That should present absolutely no problem.
If this can of worms is to be opened, then civil rights laws are turned on their heads. If you feel or identify with something or someone other than what you genetically are, then racial, gender, disability, age, etc. considerations are entirely moot.
I feel like I’m 65, irregardless of what my birth certificate says, so I’m going to retire and give me my damn pension and Medicare.
It is impossible to allow everyone to believe anything and not discriminate.
I don’t have my ping list anymore :(
Will it be recreated and re-started?
If so, put me on that sukkah...please.
bfl
Like someone at Harvard knows of Faust. It is possible they made a Heather Had Two Mommies, bargain.
Decision announced on 06/28/2010 with the usual suspects (Stevens, Breyer, Sotomayor) + Judge Kennedy in the majority.
I do ever so love pronouncements by 'authority' that feared consequences will not happen 'because ...'! Yet when they do occur, all we hear is the 'sounds of silence'! A tax is not a tax until it is decided that it is a tax and everybody is SHOCKED! Is there any sense of personal responsibility ... /sarc!
The dean’s letter:
http://college.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/deankhurana_letter.pdf
I encourage people to read the smarmy little piece of crap.
Besides being barred from any campus leadership positions, any member of single-sex “final club” will also not be eligible for Dean’s endorsement letters for any fellowships which require them.
I’m also going to assume that, if this latest policy doesn’t kill the men’s clubs, that Harvard will brand members with a scarlet D (for discriminatory) on their transcripts, as a warning to potential employers’ HR departments.
The Conservatives on campus could have a field day taking apart the Administration there. It makes me look back a bit longingly to my undergraduate days at a similarly confused bastion of "Higher Education."
President Faust sounds like a cross between the epitome of a pseudo-intellectual dolt & a Nazi theorist trying to justify "Chrystal Night." Oh the fun someone is going to have dismembering her "reasoning" processes. (And in the interest of not having mob rule in America, they had best get moving on it.)
Here is a PARTIAL list of all the Islamic organizations Harvard students may join.
Harvard African Students Association
Harvard Arab Alumni Association
Harvard College Pakistan Student Association
Harvard College Turkish Student Association
Harvard Divinity School Muslim Council
Harvard Islamic Society
Harvard Divinity School Muslim Council
To see the rest of the list of Muslim organizations that Harvard approves of go here:
http://www.islamicstudies.harvard.edu/student-organizations/
Only recently the President of the undergraduate Islamic Students’ Group asked a visiting Israeli official why she smelled so bad. In a public lecture at the Harvard Law School he asked the following question: “How is it you are so smelly? Oh, it’s a question about the odor of Ms.Tzipi Livny, very smelly, so I was just wondering.”
So this organization is okay. All black student organizations are okay. A black student union is okay.
Harvard is crazy.
I wonder whether just anybody could self-identify as Turkish and join the Turkish Student Association.
And I wonder if any white student could join the black student union.
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