DeVos’ Proposed New Rules Would Allow Religion-Based Discrimination By Student Groups

Betsy DeVos’ Department of Education has published proposed new rules governing religious student groups that receive public money. If the rules go into effect, they will eliminate the protection students have from being excluded from government-funded student groups based on characteristics such as sexual orientation or use of birth control.

The proposed rule states that a “public institution shall not deny to a religious student organization at [a] public institution any right, benefit, or privilege that is otherwise afforded to other student organizations at the public institution…because of the beliefs practices, policies, speech, membership standards or leadership standards of the religious student organization.”

In plain English, this means that any student group that views itself as religious may exclude any group of people it wants from membership or leadership even though the organization is funded with public money. If the organization wants to exclude gay or lesbian students or exclude women from leadership because they use contraceptives, the organization will be able to do so.

Protecting the religious freedom of students is a worthy goal. So is protecting their right to freedom of speech and freedom of association. But this goes well beyond such protection. Religious students already have the right to form prayer groups, book or bible clubs or any other association exclusively for like-minded students. They just aren’t entitled to government funding or government resources if they don’t want to be open to all students.

This isn’t discrimination against religious students—it’s merely treating them the same way as everyone else. For example, a College Republicans group in 2016 might have believed that candidate Donald Trump was completely repulsive to their beliefs but, as a publicly-funded college group, they couldn’t exclude Trump enthusiasts from their club. This open membership rule applies equally to all publicly funded student groups regardless of whether they are religious or secular.

These proposed new rules are part of a new aggressive push against the separation of church and state. Another important example is a case currently before the Supreme Court that has a good chance of resulting in a ruling that state governments must fund religious schools if they fund secular schools. Forcing states to fund religious schools or to funnel resources to student organizations that discriminate based on things such as sexual orientation is a terrible idea. It leads to the sort of inter-religious competition that this country has managed to avoid.

The separation of church and state is one of the most unique and successful aspects of the American system of government. Because the constitution forbids discrimination in favor of any religion, or government favoritism toward religion in general, or government hostility to any religion, America has been comparatively free of the religious wars that have rocked other countries. Unlike the United Kingdom, Catholics and Protestants do not fear one another here. Unlike India, Muslims and Hindus are not waging campaigns against one another here.

People often don’t appreciate this enough: in many ways, America is a religious paradise. According to the Pew Research Center: “The U.S. remains a robustly religious country and the most devout of all the rich Western democracies.”

The United States is also a very religiously diverse country. This rich diversity is often overlooked because of the narrow way religious diversity is measured. For example, Pew rates America as only moderately diverse but it treats all forms of Christianity as the same religion. Catholics, Evangelicals, Mormons, Quakers, and mainstream Protestants, are all counted as “Christianity.” Also, diversity is equated with having the most equal numbers of each religion. America is seen as only moderately diverse because there are so many Christians here. That’s not a good measure of diversity. There are more Jews in America than in any other country but Israel. There are 3.4 million Muslims, 3-4 million Buddhists, and 1.5 million Hindus. So America is both highly devout and highly diverse religiously.

Yet there is overwhelming religious peace in this country. While there has been an alarming increase in hate crimes against Jews, hate crimes against Muslims are down. Anti-Semitic violence is a complicated topic that I have addressed in other posts. For now, it suffices to say that the rise in anti-Semitic violence is part of a global phenomenon, and is significantly lower in the United States than in Britain and many other European countries. In other words, separation of church and state is a uniquely successful American characteristic. The nation is devout, diverse, and benefits from an absence of inter-religious conflict. Neither Betsy DeVos nor the Supreme Court should try to fix a system that isn’t broken.