-Federal Court: U. of Iowa Discriminated Against Christian Student Group

A Federal Court ruled that University of Iowa officials discriminated against a Christian student group-  InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. From Charisma News:

In July 2018, the University of Iowa and its officials restricted from their campus InterVarsity Christian Fellowship (ICF), along with some other religious groups. This was because ICF had the audacity to require that its campus group leaders were Christians.

Last week, “A federal court ruled University of Iowa officials must pay out of their own pockets for discriminating against a prominent Christian student group, calling the university’s conduct ‘ludicrous’ and ‘incredibly baffling’ during a hearing last week.”

The issue was that the university had no problem allowing secular groups on campus to make specific requirements about who could be in leadership. But when it came to a Christian group, to do so was considered discriminatory.

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Response: Ironically the university officials claimed that InterVarsity was discriminatory since the group required their leaders to actually be Christians. Yet the facts showed that the officials were the real bigots in this case and their anti-discrimination policy itself  ended up discriminating against religious groups.

The federal judge saw right through this ‘anti-discrimination’ excuse since secular groups were allowed to require that their leaders actually represented and supported the cause, issues, or reason for existence of the student groups in the first place. The Democrat student group was allowed to require that their leaders be registered Democrat party supporters, those concerned about global warming could expect their student leaders to support their cause and etc. But university leaders called it discrimination if the Christian group wanted mature Christians leaders as leaders rather than allowing atheists or members of other faiths to lead their group? The officials were obviously guilty of discrimination themselves and in this case anti-Christian bigotry.

Universities and colleges all across America have established similar ‘anti-discrimination’ policies for their student groups and Christian groups have been kicked off of dozens of campuses. As the Federal Judge says in this case it is ‘ludicrous and incredibly baffling’ to require Christian groups to allow anyone to be leaders including atheists and others who oppose Christianity. All supposedly in the name of ‘anti-discrimination’ which in the end result is discriminatory and Anti-Christian. Fortunately this type of bigotry is being overturned in court one case at a time. Unfortunately its should not have happened in the first place.

Most of the cost to overturn this bigotry is being born by Christian groups rather than the perpetrators. Fortunately in this case the judge is requiring the university officials to pay for it themselves.                     *Top