Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Around Town CP: Vanderbilt QB Spars With Administration in Nondiscrimination Meeting
Posted by Jim Ridley on Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 10:00 AM
Apparently last night's town hall meeting at Vanderbilt over the university's nondiscrimination policy was more eventful than some of the other media reports suggest. From Pierce Greenberg in The City Paper, who stayed as the heat began to rise:
It started as hundreds of students were left outside as Furman Hall quickly filled to capacity — and reached its tipping point when many students left after Vanderbilt quarterback Jordan Rodgers wasn't afforded a response to a statement.Under the "all-comers" nondiscrimination policy, Vanderbilt requires that all organizations' membership and leadership positions be open to every student on campus regardless of "race, sex, religion, color, national or ethnic origin, age, disability, military service, or genetic information." Several student organizations, most of them religious, have been deemed as non-compliant because of religion-centric qualifications for leaders. All student organizations were subject to review after a gay male was allegedly forced to resign from a Christian fraternity last year.
"We feel very strongly about all-comers," Vanderbilt Vice Chancellor for University Affairs and Athletics David Williams said. "To us, membership and leadership are one in the same."
Things got off to a tense start when the first statement from the crowd of students proclaimed unity and asked opposers of the policy to stand up. A majority of the crowd, most of them wearing white shirts, stood and applauded. But Provost Richard McCarty quickly shot the group down, saying the roughly 200 students at the meeting were not a "random" sample. Williams took it a step further.
"When we integrated, [that question] might have gotten the same [kind of] response," Williams said.
Read the whole story, which raises the complex question of whether student groups should be forced to accept student leaders who don't share the beliefs of their organization. Is this a problem that polices itself — do members routinely elect someone to a leadership position who doesn't share the group's aims? — or is the policy needed to ward off tendencies toward discrimination and segregation? Or does the policy conflict with students' rights to assemble, and the right of student groups to govern their own membership and leadership?
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Comments (6)
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This almost seemed like an April Fools Day fake story type of thing, but it's only Feb. Ugh. Wonder what Stacey Campfield thinks about this? Can someone ask him please? Otherwise I don't know which side to dislike.
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the policy doesn't say anyone is forced to have a student leader who doesn't share the beliefs of the groups. it just makes it clear that you can't require someone to have specific beliefs to RUN for a position. members can vote however they want--and its highly unlikely they'd vote for someone who doesn't share those beliefs.
If an organization of like-minded and interested people are required to accept members as well as possible leadership of those who do not share their beliefs, I would think there is a concern of the hostile takeover. Yes, they can choose to not vote in leadership that does not share their beliefs but there remains the possibility that a group opposed to their beliefs could all join and vote.
The "you will change or we will back door your organization into nonexistence" strategy is not one interested in true freedom of assembly or thought.
"but there remains the possibility that a group opposed to their beliefs could all join and vote."
Now you know what I feel like on Election Day.
The policy hadn't drawn much attention at all until one Vanderbilt political science professor, who is a regular guest commentator on Fox News, started ginning this up into a cause celebré. I'm sure the fact that making this into a story about secular liberal elites vs. Christians would enhance her gig with Hannity never occurred to this professor, and she's doing it all because of her love for freedom.
Why should an atheist want to join, much less lead a religious organization? A gay organization at Vandy should not be required to have homophobic members. Anyone who thinks that a restaurant has the right to refuse service to Stacy Campfield ought to recognize the right of a college Christian group to only have Christian members and leaders. Atheists who want to socialize with Christians can start their own 'Atheists for Jesus club.'
