Featured FEN Organizations
June 29th, 2010
In ‘Martinez,’ Justice Ginsburg Disregards Serious Threat of Hostile Takeovers
As FIRE detailed in yesterday's press release, the Supreme Court in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez upheld the University of California Hastings College of the Law's denial of Registered Student Organization (RSO) status to the Christian Legal Society because the student group did not follow the school's "all-comers" policy. This all-comers policy—which we'll discuss further in a forthcoming blog post—requires student groups to open their membership to all students in order to receive RSO status, no matter how antipathetic a particular student's views are to those of the group. This means that at Hastings, CLS, a distinctly Christian group, must now accept as voting members and leaders any student who might be opposed to the mission of the group if it wants to receive access to university benefits afforded to other groups. (The same is true for all groups at Hastings, including political groups.) This is a resounding blow to students at Hastings College of the Law who wish to exercise their First Amendment right to expressive association.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writing for the narrow five-member majority, found that the all-comers requirement was constitutional because it was judged reasonable in light of the purposes of ...