First Amendment Under Attack
Tuesday, January 17th, 2006
I just got an email from Chad Kent, who is a frequent visitor to this blog and a blogger at 4TheLittleGuy.com that focuses on UW-Eau Claire’s decision banning Resident Advisors (RA’s) “from participating in religious expression on their own time in the privacy of their own rooms.” The reason: “UWEC administrator Deborah Newman banned RAs from leading private, non-school-sponsored Bible studies in their dorms out of concern that students might feel “judged” and that Bible study-leading RAs might not be sufficiently “approachable.” It gets worse. Here’s what FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education) said in its press release:
The University of Wisconsin (UW) System, whose Madison campus features a similar ban, belatedly responded to FIRE but made the situation worse by claiming that RAs had always been banned from leading “all” organizations or activities, not just religious ones, within UWEC dorms. This conflicted with both the job description for RAs and the fact that the university has praised and supported RAs who led and organized controversial and political activities such as an official dorm production of The Vagina Monologues, a “Tunnel of Oppression,” and various other programs. Soon afterward, both UW System President Kevin Reilly and a group of 25 concerned Wisconsin state legislators asked the state’s attorney general for her opinion on the constitutionality of the RA Bible study ban. FIRE also wrote the attorney general to provide information that UW failed to include. On November 21, the attorney general’s office refused to give an opinion on the grounds that it might have to represent UWEC in litigation. UWEC’s Larson then suspended the policy late yesterday after the lawsuit was filed.
UWEC has defended this repressive policy with statements that were demonstrably false: (more…)