TN Legislature Seeks to Overturn Bizarre Vanderbilt Rule

A recent rule from Vanderbilt University that takes open admittance to student groups to the illogical extreme is being challenged by lawmakers.

Lawmakers in Tennessee have approved a bill that would effectively rescind Vanderbilt University’s controversial policy requiring student groups to have completely open membership admittance and freedom to run for office within that group.

The bill comes after Vanderbilt University took its policy to the extreme by informing a Christian student group that its official recognition was to be revoked because it required its members to have a personal commitment to Jesus Christ.

“It just shows how radical the Vanderbilt administration has become in enforcing a policy that is nonsense,” said Kim Colby, senior counsel for the Christian Legal Society’s Center for Law and Religious Freedom. “A lot of jaws dropped when we saw how far the Vanderbilt administration was taking this.”

Thirteen Christian groups have so far decided to defy the ban on requiring a member to actually be a Christian. Two groups have announced plans to leave campus. Considering that Vanderbilt has a long standing tradition of religious belief (it was originally a Methodist institution established for the study of theology) many student groups are in shock at the bizarre new requirements.

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education is also concerned by Vanderbilt’s radical new policy and has written an open letter to the Chancellor Nicholas Zeppos asking him to clarify whether the policy will be applied fairly and equally or is merely a targeted persecution of Christian groups. For example, would Vanderbilt’s Muslim Students Association be forced to keep a leader who converted to Christianity? FIRE also asked Zeppos to explain how leaders of Christian groups were to fulfill their responsibilities if they were, as happened to the Christian Legal Society, prohibited from requiring their leaders to ‘lead Bible studies, prayer and worship’ because this implied the necessity of holding a particular religious belief.

State Rep Bill Dunn notes that the ‘all-comers’ policy doesn’t apply to fraternities and sororities which are exempted through federal Title IX regulations that apply to gender issues.

“It shows the hypocrisy of Vanderbilt University,” Dunn said. “They know they can pick on Christian groups and it won’t affect their donors. But if they go after fraternities and sororities they realize it might hit them in the pocket book.”

Many questions in the FIRE letter boil down to the core problem of an open admittance policy for student groups. What to do about groups of students from a differing political, religious belief (or sexual orientation) joining a group deliberately to disrupt or disband it?

The senate vote was won 19-12 and the House vote 61-22. The split was largely along party lines. The bill now goes to Governor Bill Haslam whose likely response is unclear. While he has publicly disapproved of Vanderbilt’s policy he has also indicated that he doesn’t believe the legislature should be interfering in the matter.

Comments

Jim

May 5, 2012 at 5:26 am

This article is extremely misleading.
Vanderbilt’s written policy simply states that any group FUNDED BY STUDENT FEES must be non-discriminatory and open to ALL students.

This policy is neither “new”, “extreme”, “bizarre” or “shocking” but simply a restatement of Vandy’s long standing policy as a Private Secular university since it’s split from the Methodist Church 100 years ago and reflects the common sense principle that no student should be barred from full participation in a university activity on the basis of race, religion, etc., especially when their money is funding the activity.

Further, this position has been accepted by the vast majority of mainstream religious groups, with the exception of a couple of far right Conservative “Christian” groups solely seeking to create a political issue.

Reply
- Linda Brees
  
  May 7, 2012 at 12:22 pm
  
  Thank you, Jim. It’s nice to get some common sense around here.
  
  Reply
  - Jim
    
    May 9, 2012 at 7:40 am
    
    And thank you for your kind words.
    
    While it’s ironic that the Foundation for INDIVIDUAL Rights would attack a PRIVATE institution, it’s worse that they would select Vanderbilt (The Ivy of The South), who’s school of Divinity, top ranked school of Education and Medical Center do so much for the benefit of and are an economic engine for Middle Tennessee.
    
    What’s unpardonable though, are the actions of the state legislators who supported a bill attacking one of their best state institutions.
    Educators, the fine people of Tennessee and Vanderbilt deserve much better.
    
    Reply
    - Linda Brees
      
      May 9, 2012 at 10:45 am
      
      Well, the goals of FIRE are misrepresented too. They are fairly conservative.
      
      If the university does anything that could be even remotely “PC” they are right there to save the poor oppressed members of the majority via a well-timed lawsuit.
      
      http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Foundation_for_Individual_Rights_in_Education
      
      Reply
TN Legislature Seeks to Overturn Bizarre … – Education News | ChristianBias.com

May 5, 2012 at 6:21 am

[...] Christian Persecution News- Christian Bias SOURCE: http://www.educationnews.org/higher-education/tn-legislature-seeks-to-overturn-bizarre-vanderbilt-ru... [...]

Reply
Doug

May 6, 2012 at 6:54 pm

I could care less if Christianity diappeared off the face of the Earth. It has only brought us mysogeny, the Crusades, the Inquisition, the persecution of Galileo, The Holocaust, RC Christian schools full of pedophilia, a justification of imperialism and colonialism, Apartheit, anti-abortion nonsense, anti-birth control idiocy, denials of evolution and science and a host of evil events. It does far more harm than good.

At least as people modernize, urbanize and understand science, they can leave these myths and legands behind them.

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Matt

May 21, 2012 at 6:03 am

Am I missing something here….a group is exclusionary by nature. No one would expect a fly-fishing group to accept somebody who wants to meet to play football, or the chess club to accept somebody who wants to participate by giving speeches on current events, so why should a Christian group or any other religious group for that matter be forced to accept somebody that does not prescribe to the same system of beliefs? If what Jim says is true it seems like everybody on campus including the administration is trying to make a mountain out of a mole hill. However, if the administration is now targeting just Christian groups of being exclusionary and not talking to the golf group, or the any number of the other groups on campus then ther article’s point is warranted. Perhaps there is a common thread here and the administration is going after a certain religious belief. Have that told the Muslim groups on campus that they must accept individuals that don’t believe in Allah?

Reply