Supreme Court Sides with Hastings in CLS Case

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Today, the United States Supreme Court issued a 5-4 opinion in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez.

In a somewhat surprising decision, the Court ruled in favor of UC-Hastings School of Law.  The law school had a nondiscrimination policy that denied the Christian Legal Society chapter on campus the status of being a recognized student organization if the group prohibited students from joining that were engaged in “unrepentant homosexual conduct.”

The Court posed the question this way:

May a public law school condition its official recognition of a student group—and the attendant use of school funds and facilities—on the organization’s agree­ment to open eligibility for membership and leadership to all students?

The majority held that a public law school could do so and it doesn’t violate the group’s First Amendment rights.

Justice Alito, writing in his dissent, argued:

The proudest boast of our free speech jurisprudence is that we protect the freedom to express “the thought that we hate.”  Today’s decision rests on a very different principle: no freedom for expression that offends prevailing standards of political correctness in our country’s institutions of higher learning.

The Hastings College of the Law, a state institution, permits student organizations to register with the law school and severely burdens speech by unregistered groups.  Hastings currently has more than 60 registered groups and, in all its history, has denied registration to exactly one: the Christian Legal Society (CLS). CLS claims that Hastings refused to register the group because the law school administration disapproves of the group’s viewpoint and thus violated the group’s free speech rights. [Internal citations omitted]

CLHE will analyze the implications of the case for members.