Religion & Law

Just a few points to add to Tom's brief description of the case. The Christian Legal Society and any other student organization (even though not "recognized") is permitted to have access to the classrooms for meetings and the like, but it is not eligible to receive subsidies and a variety of other benefits so long as it discriminates on the basis of religion or sexual orientation. The district court maintained that Hastings was regulating conduct not speech. It admitted that the CLS was particularly hard hit, but argued that the purpose of Hastings did not involve viewpoint discrimination and that it was reasonable to require that organizations receiving subsidies be open to all students. It distinguished the expressive association cases on the ground that subsidies were involved here not a direct regulation of membership. It distinguished Rosenberger on the ground that viewpoint discrimination was present there.