InterVarsity president Alec Hill – who formerly taught law at Seattle Pacific University – has written an opinion column on Christianity Today’s website that offers some wisdom and insight on the CLS v. Martinez case (and I’m not just saying that because he’s my boss).
Like many other commentators, Alec wonders about the viability of an “all comers” policy:
It is difficult to imagine a large university like Ohio State adopting an “all-comers” policy. Student groups representing affinity groups such as sororities, Latinos, atheists, or the LGBT community would be required to admit anyone and everyone into their inner circles. Sororities, for example, would have to admit male students. The result would be chaotic.
Alec notes that, to his knowledge, only one university in the country has a policy like Hastings.
I strongly recommend reading the whole article – I was tempted to quote almost all of it! However, I’ll close with just one anecdote that Alec shares, illustrating why it’s important for colleges and universities to make room for minority viewpoints, even when the university administration doesn’t understand that viewpoint.
Recently, the president of a private liberal arts college became concerned about our chapter’s insistence that student leaders be committed to biblical standards of sexual holiness. When the chapter leaders came to his office—a student body officer, a star athlete, and the editor of the campus newspaper—he grasped the importance of keeping the chapter on campus.
Like I said, read the whole thing. Afterwards, check out my InterVarsity and CLS colleague Michael Schutt’s blog post on the ruling, too.
The former Associate Director for the Emerging Scholars Network, Micheal lives in Cincinnati with his wife and three children and works as a web manager for a national storage and organization company. He writes about work, vocation, and finding meaning in what you do at No Small Actors.
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