I say give the club the money and take away the tax exemptions from all churches.

Seems fair.

Off piste comment

Another religious freak out...
That's one of the most high-charged papal body slams I've ever had the pleasures to watch.
Beware: It cracks the back of sacerdotalism...

Let's let the minority opinion's diatribe against political correctness also serve as a reminder that the lashing out against political correctness is nothing but a defense of allowing racism, homophobia, sectarianism and other forms of hate-speech to thrive unassailed. Even liberals sometimes will make fun of PC-ness, but let's remember why we want PC-ness around.

That this decision was 5-4 is disgusting. Simply disgusting.

"freedom of expression" = money from the government for discrimination.

Big government for me, not for thee!

If a Republican president replaces Kennedy, we are screwed.

What's striking about this decision, based on a quick skim, is how simple, rational, and unobjectionable the logic of Ginsburg's decision is, and how utterly farcical and unmoored from the facts of the case Scalia's rebuttal is.

This case simply didn't break down on an ideological divide about the correct interpretation of Constitutional Law. It broke down between five justices who were determined to apply the law and the relevant precedents, and four who were determined to screw the University and California and piss on liberals based on assumptions and biases that bore absolutely no relationship to the facts of the case.

It captures the current political divisions in this country quite neatly. On the one hand: the rule of law. On the other hand: arbitrary use of state power to advance the interests of conservatives.

Requiring non-discrimination is considered discriminatory by a group of activist judges.

"CLS, it bears emphasis, seeks not parity with other organizations, but a preferential exemption from Hastings' policy." -- Justice Ginsburg

And yet, I'm supposed to believe that it is she and her like, who are the "activist judges", not the dissenters (collectively known as RATS, for Roberts, Alito, Scalia and Thomas)... It buggers the mind (as I used to say, before my English improved)

It is appalling that the four right wing Supremes (I refuse to call them Justices, for obvious reasons) equate discrimination against a minority in this day and age with "political correctness," a term designed to denigrate a not insignificant minority of the American people. History will look back at statements like theirs in amazement and horror, as we look back at judicial injustices against blacks in earlier times.

I don't want to raise my hopes too much, but it is heartening to see Mr. Kennedy on the side of the angels in this decision. If, as appears more and more likely, the issue of marriage equality for LGBT people will come before this court sooner rather than later, and his opinion in this is a happy surprise.

"It should generate a significant religious right freak-out"

-"freaking out" is well night impossible for groups that believe in talking snakes, walking on water, and turning wine into blood (and, in a certain cannibalistic cult, then ritually consuming it)

"It should generate a significant religious right freak-out"

And just wait until they find out the Blackhawks sent the Stanley Cup down Chicago's Gay Pride parade yesterday on the gay hockey league float!

I'm going to be intellectual consistency patrol if any Xtians try to crash some LGBT organization.

I understand that the big 4 are conservative, but they actually argued for mandating that the club be subsidized (e.g. paid for by the institution)?

Talk about unintended consequences. If this had gone the other way, I think you could have expected to see several "Me" clubs form at Universities about the US. As in "I discriminate against everyone but me, so now give me money to run my club that contains only me."

Pretty much every argument in the dissent is a reason why some clubs should remain private. Jeezuz, can you imagine the can of worms that would have been opened if the club had won? Every freak group would be suing, claiming that they discriminate exactly the right amount to be qualified for recognition.

Why do I get the feeling that the "Christian Legal Society" was created specifically to be able to bring this challenge up through the courts? This sounds exactly like the kind of bullshit lawsuit that right-wing groups love to file - it pisses off liberals and makes a college waste money on bullshit. And if they're lucky they can get a ruling that screws colleges over even more.

Anyone know who funded this lawsuit and how much money they drained away from the college in legal fees?

One wonders how the SCOTUS's conservative bloc would have reacted had the CLS refused to allow persons of color to join. Maybe all campuses should not only allow, but fund, KKK student groups.

I can't see this opinion as a triumph for progressive values. Surely, one of the pillars of our democracy is the ability of private citizens to form organizations to advocate for particular points of view. just as surely, the ability to control membership in an organization is central to its ability to maintain itself and further its mission. Call it "discrimination" if you like, but all private organizations have the right to discriminate against those that do not share their goals. Do GLBT organizations have to accept homophobes?

Hastings is on dangerous ground, it seems to me, in providing a favored status for organizations that permit it to dictate membership requirements.

Call it "discrimination" if you like, but all private organizations have the right to discriminate against those that do not share their goals.

Of course they do, they just don't have the right to receive funding and endorsement from a public university.
Thanks for the concern trolling though, Mr./Ms. Progressive whose name I've never seen posted here before.

Anyone know who funded this lawsuit and how much money they drained away from the college in legal fees?

I'm guessing it was the Jay Seculow(sp?)/Pat Robertson legal organization. They're usually involved in all these types of suits, and always whining about how Christians in a predominantly Christian country controlled mostly by Christians are somehow suffering from discrimination.

Yet more proof that the right wing of the court is full of shit. Remind me again, what would have been the downside of Democrats filibustering Roberts and Alito?

Oh yeah, Senate Republicans likely would have gotten rid of the filibuster. So as a result, we now have Roberts and Alito on the court and minority Republicans can hold the Senate hostage.

Well done, Harry Reid and the rest of the Senate Democratic caucus!

This decision doesn't sound like it dictates membership requirements since the CLS can discriminate all it wants, it just can't do it with university money. The same would be true of a gay organization that explicitly denied membership to homophobes. One can think of absurd examples all day long, but non-discrimination cuts both ways and will always present conflicts of interest.

To sanction discrimination in the name of free speech seems like a 19th century rationalization for institutionalized bigotry not only against gays, but women, blacks, Asians, Jews, Roman Catholics, Mormons, Italians, Germans, Russians, Irish, Poles, Slovaks, Gypsies, and Native Americans. Basically any group considered 'other'.

That there are four trogs on this court is no surprise, that we may get a fifth is frightening beyond imagining.

Has it escaped so many people that this club can continue to exist and that the University is not forcing it out of existence? If they want to be discriminatory against nonfundamentalists, they are allowed to continue to do that as long as they do it on their own dime. This point seems to have gotten lost in all the hooha.

"prevailing standards of political correctness in our country's institutions of higher learning."

It says a lot about the intellectual rot in our judicial system that a pop culture political term like "political correctness" is appearing in a supreme court decision. What next, will the supremes be quoting lines from political posters, comedy sketches, and beer ads as though they were legal terminology?

Call it "discrimination" if you like, but all private organizations have the right to discriminate against those that do not share their goals. Do GLBT organizations have to accept homophobes?

They are perfectly free to do so, just not with university funds.

I guess state-run and -funded universities aren't doing too bad if they have enough money to fund all of these student groups.

/snark

Honestly, with state budgets bleeding red and state tax receipts dwindling, I think state-run universities have better uses for their monies than giving it to clubs and the like. Let the kids get together on their own time and dime. Save the budget money for teachers/professor's salaries. That's why you go to college. To get an education first and foremost.

Any ruling-- or dissent-- that mentions "political correctness" is likely to be garbage.

ConcernTroll is concerned.

Of course, the fact that CLS was not kicked off campus but only denied the use of funds and facilities, presents a less stark constitutional violation but it does not solve all constitutional problems. The opinion assumes that Hastings is not restricting speech by enforcing its open-to-all policy but I am not convined. It conditions state support for an organization on that organization violating its own tenets. So in essence it creates a two-track system where organizations that are in line with the University's ideology are favored over other organizations.

I just think that maintaining the independence and vibrancy of private organization is a more important concern for a healthy polity than the perception created by the disbursal of funds to groups that do not measure up to the university's non-discrimination policy. And of course, nothing keeps the University from adhering to its own anti-discrimination policy.

Also, as some have mentioned, nothing requires funds to be given to organizations at all and perhaps that is the best solution to the problem.

With regard to the charge of concern trolling, I will just say that I have been a progressive since early adulthood, that I support equality, including marriage equality and that I voted for and still support the current administration. If you don't see my name much it is because I don't post just to add to the echo chamber and try to stick to subjects I know a little about. I would certainly hope a progressive community, of all communities, could tolerate a bit of dissent.

It conditions state support for an organization on that organization violating its own tenets.

Only if the organization's tenets include discrimination. In this regard, it's the same as the Internal Revenue Code: no tax exemption for organizations that discriminate (well, at least on the basis of race).

I wonder if Justice Scalia considers that "political correctness."

And if the "best solution to the problem" is to remove state support, then we should kiss the tax exemption good bye. I wonder how the churches would feel about that?!

I wonder how the four dissenters would have ruled if the Muslim Legal Society had sued Hastings demanding student fees and recognition for an association that required its members to swear allegiance to Allah and abstain from any contact with unmarried members of the opposite sex. I doubt that would have been a situtation where they just called a ball a ball and a strike a strike.

Another hypothetical. How would the RATS have voted if the group seeking redress had been liberals discriminating against Republicans?

I just think that maintaining the independence and vibrancy of private organization is a more important concern....

If the 'private organization' is receiving public funds to subsidize it, then it isn't a private organization, now is it?

It conditions state support for an organization on that organization violating its own tenets. So in essence it creates a two-track system where organizations that are in line with the University's ideology are favored over other organizations.

Which is perfectly constitutional. There's nothing in First Amendment doctrine which says that a public forum can't place restrictions on the identity or behavior of those seeking the forum's benefit.

In fact, Scalia wrote one of the seminal opinions in this vein in his concurrence in NEA v. Finley. Antonin:

"Avant-garde artistes such as respondents remain entirely free to épater les bourgeois [shock the middle classes]; they are merely deprived of the additional satisfaction of having the bourgeoisie taxed to pay for it. It is preposterous to equate the denial of taxpayer subsidy with measures 'aimed at the suppression of dangerous ideas.'"

"they are merely deprived of the additional satisfaction of having the bourgeoisie taxed to pay for it. It is preposterous to equate the denial of taxpayer subsidy with measures 'aimed at the suppression of dangerous ideas.'"

Hmmm, so now he no longer finds it preposterous . Wonder what the difference is?