Harvard’s Blacklist: A Faustian Bargain

Mike Adams

. . . "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 longstanding tradition of respect for freedom of association as a cultural value. (Does anyone remember Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville?).