More on the CLS Victory

Thanks to Rob for posting the Seventh Circuit decision in Christian Legal Society v. Southern Illinois University.  It's a great win for the ability of religious (and other) groups to participate in the public square and government-created fora without giving up their essential beliefs. In addition to recognizing the obvious fact that forcing CLS to accept actively gay members would destroy its ability to express and its maintain its biblical beliefs, the court also correctly rejected SIU's claim that CLS was not burdened because it could meet off campus and was merely being denied benefits as opposed to being forced to associate.  The "mere benefits" that CLS was denied included the ability to meet privately in law school classrooms like other groups (CLS would have to let other students walk through the room during the meeting), to use law school bulletin boards, to appear on the school website and in publications, and to call itself the "SIU chapter" of CLS.  The rule would effectively drive CLS off campus and out of the eye of SIU students.  The Court had rejected the very same defense in Healy v. James (1972) when universities tried to bar Students for a Democratic Society from campuses. 

On this and other holdings, the Seventh Circuit ruling disagrees with a recent district court decision concerning CLS and UC-Hastings School of Law (linked to here and on Westlaw at 2006 WL 997217).  Hopefully the Seventh Circuit's arguments will affect the Hastings appeal, but if the Hastings decision is affirmed in the Ninth Circuit, that case may be prime for Supreme Court review.  (Although the Hastings case involves a final judgment as opposed to a preliminary injunction "likelihood of success" question, the Seventh Circuit's analysis in the SIU case virtually says that CLS should win on the merits.)

Tom