Individuals who are users of theological student organizations at public higher education will be able to elect their own leaders.
An atheist campaigning group’s four-year legal battle was recently resolved by a federal court that was fought by a federal court to overturn a Trump-era law that forbids institutions from limiting student groups ‘ religious rights on college campuses.
The U. S. District Court for the District Court of Columbia on Jan. 15 ruled in favor of Trump’s 2020″ Completely Examination Rule”, which allows student teams to have officials who reflect the group’s ideas.
The Liberal Student Alliance had sued Biden’s Department of Education in 2021 seeking to overturn the law, arguing it is unfair.
The alliance’s earlier statement reads,” The law grants religious scholar clubs the absolute right to use faith to discriminate while also receiving official college recognition and funding.”
” The law thus undermines the equality plans that many colleges and universities have enacted to ensure that clubs don’t accept students from membership or management positions on the basis of race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, illness, or other protected characteristics”.
The lawsuit had been adjourned in the courts because the U.S. Department of Education considered robbing the Free Inquiry Rule through the appropriate administrative channels, but it had not yet concluded that process at the time of Trump’s reelection.
The education department acknowledged it had no plans for “publication of a final rule prior to the change in presidential administration on January 20, 2025. The court tossed the lawsuit.
We now feel like the wind is at our back, according to Corey Miller, president of Ratio Christi, a national Christian campus apologetics ministry that helped file a friend-of-the-court brief in defense of the rule with the assistance of Alliance Defending Freedom.
” We can now have confidence that we’ll be treated fairly, inclusively, at the universities, which were largely started by Christians and for Christ”, Miller told The College Fix via email. ” All we are asking for is equal freedom under the law,” the statement read. Sometimes we have to remind university administrators of the law of the land and provide them with continuing education.
Ismail Royer, director of Islam and religious freedom at the Religious Freedom Institute, also praised the development.
This outcome is a testament to the efforts of organizations fighting to protect students ‘ and institutions ‘ religious freedom. It also serves as evidence of the effectiveness of utilizing the opportunities the APA offers the public to promote good and stop harm, he said in a news release.
The outcome of this case is that students who are members of religious student organizations will be able to choose their own leaders at public institutions of higher education. And that’s a good thing”.
Miller claimed that “it would have been virtually open hunting season on groups like Ratio Christi” if the lawsuit had been successful.
Miller said there is still much work to be done and plans to work with the Department of Education to remind “universities of their requirements so that they don’t misbehave and pay the price” even though the court made its final ruling days before Trump’s second inauguration.
He claimed that” we now have a president who will be willing to actually enforce the law.” ” Biden would not have done that, and he wanted to actually end the policy,” he said. After four long years, we experienced victory, justice, and freedom for all”.
The Secular Student Alliance did not respond to The College Fix’s comments on the article.
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