Victory for Religious Liberty at MSOE: ‘A Huge Mistake’?

Several days after FIRE took the ReJOYce in Jesus Campus Fellowship (RJCF) case at the Milwaukee School of Engineering (MSOE) public last week, MSOE’s Student Government Association (SGA) reversed course and decided to grant RJCF full recognition. FIRE just issued a press release today announcing this victory for religious liberty and freedom of association.

While members of RJCF are indeed rejoicing that they have secured their rights at MSOE, some of their schoolmates are lamenting. Along with the news about SGA’s decision to recognize RJCF (as well as the Muslim Students Association and the Cigar and Pipe Social Club), the staff of MSOE’s campus newspaper Ingenium published an editorial yesterday stating that the “SGA has made a huge mistake” and that its decision to approve RJCF “should be deemed null and void.” The students’ assessment of the case demonstrates a very unfortunate misunderstanding of voluntary association and an ironic misapplication of the term “discrimination.”

The students wrote:

[P]age 25 of the Whole Student Life Handbook, under the heading of Policy Regarding On-Campus Religious Activities, states, “[N]o individual or organization, either internal or external to the university, may carry on activities on campus with the specific purpose to ‘proselytize’ — that is, to make converts of — members of the campus community to a specific church or religious affiliation.”

The RJCF constitution goes on to state that anyone who wishes to become a member must subscribe to the following confession of Christian Faith which begins with, "I confess and believe: 'The Bible, Old and New Testaments, is God’s divinely inspired Word.'"

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language defines conversion as, "A change in which one adopts a new religion, faith or belief." Therefore, we feel any required religious oath or confessed belief constitutes a form of religious conversion and is again in violation of the Whole Student Life Handbook.

Actually, RJCF’s specific purpose does not include "making converts of" members of the campus community. The point of having free, voluntary association on any campus is so that individuals who already agree with (or who are interested in) a set of beliefs are free to join (or create) a group adhering to those beliefs and individuals who may want to embrace the group’s beliefs and join the group are also free to do so. Such voluntary association (or even voluntary conversion) is not the same as aggressive proselytizing. To equate “wishing to become a member” with forced conversion and then to deny RJCF members the right to associate based on their agreed-upon beliefs indeed amounts to a case of discrimination — against religious students. As David stated in our first press release, RJCF’s “standards are hardly surprising for a Christian group, and are integral in communicating this group’s religious message. Those who disagree with these standards should form other religious or secular student groups, not force changes to the expressive message of RJCF.”

Furthermore, the editorial staff seemed to ignore the fact that page 25 of MSOE’s handbook also states:

MSOE encourages spiritual exploration and moral and ethical formation as desirable components of students’ personal growth and development. On the other hand, the university asserts every individual’s right to make spiritual choices freely, and to form religious associations without coercion or constraint. At minimum, certainly, MSOE must insist as an academic institution that all members of the campus community — students, faculty and staff — be able to pursue their educational and professional objectives without harassment or undue distraction. [Emphasis added.]

Let’s not forget that RJCF had already existed without a problem on campus for ten years prior to this battle with the school. As far as we know, it had never been accused of being coercive, disruptive, harassing, or distracting to others. What seems to deeply bother the SGA and the Ingenium editorial staff is not RJCF’s “proselytizing” (since it has never done so), but its mere existence as a religious group whose bylaws explicitly require voting members to adhere to certain tenets of the Christian faith in their personal conduct, such as not engaging in “homosexual behavior.” (Note that the SGA’s letter did not complain about the prohibition against acts of “idolatry, premarital or extramarital sex . . . drunkenness, coveting, theft, profanity, occult practices and dishonesty.”)

The Ingenium editorial staff also wrote:

We do not wish to condemn RJCF as a religious group. It is not our intention to discourage religious groups from organizing on campus. We feel the presence of diverse religious and cultural organizations on campus is a benefit to the MSOE community. We have been pleased to see that the Catholic Student Association has been a regular contributor to the Ingenium. However, our issue is that RJCF’s constitution clearly states that only certain students are allowed to join, thus promoting discrimination. Student organizations are meant to bring students together, not to label, judge or chastise them.

Perhaps continuing to not approve RJCF would have been an unpopular decision. However, we believe that, in these circumstances, it would have been the right decision.

Ironically, in attempting to criticize RJCF, the editorial staff instead hits upon the core of RJCF’s purpose: to bring students together. RJCF seeks to bring the students together who agree with its purpose, beliefs, and — yes — even its “Standards of Personal Conduct.” The editorial staff’s article has condemned RJCF as a group whose beliefs are “unacceptable” and therefore need to be remedied (see my previous post) just because the editorial staff disagrees with those beliefs. In doing so, the editorial staff has committed the very sins that it deems unforgivable: labeling, judging, and chastising members of the MSOE community who simply want to exercise their basic freedoms of religion and association — without any “coercion or constraint.”
 
(To learn more about students’ rights to religious liberty and freedom of association, please see FIRE’s Guide to Religious Liberty on Campus.)