Gonzaga, Seton Hall, and Discrimination

Rob raises an excellent point (below), asking whether there is "any principled reason for supporting the students trying to create a Christian Legal Society chapter at Gonzaga, but not the student trying to create a gay student group at Seton Hall?" In my view, there probably is.

As Rob says, the decision by the SBA leadership at Gonzaga (and again, to be clear, I do not know all the facts) to deny recognition of the CLS appears to be not only an effort to "impose a collective, identity-squelching anti-discrimination norm on its student groups," but also an effort to impose a norm (i.e., a certain notion of anti-discrimination) that (in my view) runs counter to Gonzaga's character as a Catholic law school. Seton Hall's decision, on the other hand, is -- arguably -- in the service of its character as a Catholic law school, and -- arguably -- reflects a norm appropriate to that character. Certainly, I am a "fan" of associational integrity and freedom, I would want the state to treat both the CLS at Gonzaga and the gay-rights group at Seton Hall in an even-handed fashion. In each case, for instance, I would want the State to defer to the groups' own decisions about membership and leadership. I guess I have been approaching these cases, though, with an eye toward how these two (private) law schools should act.

Still, I'm not entirely satisfied with my own answer, and I welcome others' reactions to these two cases.

Rick