Vanderbilt Turns the Screws Further on Student Groups

When Christian student groups at Vanderbilt complained about the university's policy forbidding registered student organizations to set eligibility criteria for leaders, Vanderbilt officials assured everyone that

We recognize that some groups, including some religious student organizations, may decide not to register.  We will respect any such decisions and hope that those groups will continue to be actively engaged with our students and community, albeit without the rights and privileges accorded registered student organizations.

Now we have a report that one of those little rights and privileges to be lost is the ability to use the name "Vanderbilt" in the group's title.  University officials have demanded that Vanderbilt Catholic change its name because it decided not to register rather than give up its requirement that leaders be Catholics.

“Those student groups who choose not to comply with the university’s nondiscrimination policy do forfeit the privileges associated with registered student organization status and that includes the use of the Vanderbilt name,” spokesperson Beth Fortune told Fox News.

Unless there is something missing in this report, it reveals the utter dishonesty, and confirms the intolerance, of the Vanderbilt administration.  "[B]e actively engaged with our students and community," they soothingly said--"You just can't refer to yourself as being at Vanderbilt."

I assume that forbidding "use of the Vanderbilt name" includes forbidding a name such as "The Catholic Community at Vanderbilt."  BUT I would think that if the Catholic group made such a change, the university would be unable to stop it legally.  Vanderbilt's only claim would be a trademark suit, and the group would have a winning defense of fair use: the group is simply referring to its location and focus, not implying university sponsorship.  (Would the university then try to bar the group from any activity or publicity on campus?  How far is it willing to go in revealing that it in fact does want these groups off of campus altogether?)

Tom