Princess Mandy posted this story from Christianity Today, and I am blogging it.
Excerpt: (links removed)
InterVarsity Christian Fellowship (IVCF) has been, in modern campus terminology, “derecognized” by California State University schools. Basically, they will no longer be a recognized campus organization on any of the 23 schools in that system. IVCF has been derecognized because they require their leaders to have Christian beliefs.
It’s not just InterVarsity that will be impacted. Following the same logic, any group that insists on requiring its leaders to follow an agreed upon set of guiding beliefs is no longer kosher (irony intended) at California’s state universities. This will impact many other faith-based organizations with actual, well, faith-based beliefs. Presumably, even People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals would have to allow Oscar Meyer to lead their campus chapters.
[…]Now, it’s not persecution. Christians are not banned. People can share their faith. But, now, what we once called “equal access” has taken another hit—people of faith do not have equal access to the university community, like the environmentalist club, the LGBT organization, or the chess club.
The university system has decided that speech with beliefs that undergird it—and shape how it is organized—has to be derecognized.
I asked Greg Jao, who is National Field Director & Campus Access Coordinator, what this actually meant. He explained,
Loss of recognition means we lose 3 things: free access to rooms (this will cost our chapters $13k-30k/year to reserve room). We also lose access to student activities programs, including the new student fairs where we meet most students. We also lose standing when we engage faculty, students and administrators.
And while they still have freedom to request a meeting spot in some buildings, they no longer have the status when other officially recognized groups request the same spot—even though they are, well, fee-paying students in a facility owned by the people of California.
Jao indicated the work is not done, explaining,
We still intend to minister on campus but loss of recognition is a significant impediment.
The bigger, and ongoing, issue is the continual sanitization of unacceptable religious voices from universities. It’s ironic—those who champion nondiscrimination, in the name of nondiscrimination, are creating rules that push out those who “discriminate” based on biblical belief statements.
A few years ago, I asked in the pages of USAToday, are evangelicals no longer welcome in the public arena? If that arena is a California state university, and those evangelicals want an official school organization, that answer is obvious.
This has already happened in other places, perhaps most notably at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. But, Vanderbilt is a private university. Now, state schools have decided that, due to their odd policies restricting belief based organization from requiring belief, students who have evangelical beliefs—and think the leaders of their belief-based campus organization should also have beliefs—are no longer welcome as a student organization.
Christian taxpayers in California are paying into this school system, thanks to the compulsory collection of taxes. So now Christian families will have less money to send their own kids to schools that actually allow freedom of association and equal access to Christians. We have to pay twice – once into a system that treats us as second-class citizens, and once into a private system that recognizes our fundamental rights. This is why we should be voting to cut off the money supply to the non-essential responsibilities of government. We need to keep our money to work around the discrimination of the secularists.
WINTERY KNIGHT 
I think the likelihood of them “derecognizing” a Muslim group for the same reason is zilch. That being said, I think it is short-sighted of the Christian groups to insist on their leadership requirements. Firstly, what non-Christian is going to want such a position? Secondly, what members are going to vote for such a person? Lastly, lets say a trojan attempts to gain leadership under false pretenses: the Christians in the group will have had lots of time to minister/witness to him/her, and who knows what could come of that?
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There are many an-theists that would do something like this just for the opportunity to ridicule or undermine religious belief. Although most college students I encounter have a mature respect for others many don’t. Those who don’t are fully willing to abuse their peers in other ways so it would be naive to think that nobody would run for leadership or support someone running for leadership as a joke.
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You have got to be kidding. Without signing a “statement of faith” or some such for the leadership, the organization would turn bland and lukewarm in a few years. Those requirements are essential for keeping the fire going in such a hostile environment (I’m a Berkeley grad from 1990). As to witnessing to unsaved members/attenders, I assure you that’s always been happening.
Please don’t underestimate the bad faith of our opponents! (Conservative Christians seem to excel at this)
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This does sound like a dumb rule. I wonder if IVCF could just strike that belief requirement from their official charter and make the leader democratically elected. That way, anyone who wasn’t a believer would lose the election, and you’d end up with the same happy situation.
A dumb bureaucratic rule deserves to be circumvented with a simple paper amendment.
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I work at a Christian College and I understand the need for groups to require that those responsible for conducting the content and flow of the activities hold to the beliefs of that group. The groups on campus are there so that students that hold a particular view or set of beliefs (Christian, Atheist, Jewish, Muslim, Republican, Democrat, Humanist, environmentalist, etc.) have a place to respectfully and safely express those views and beliefs with their peers. Opening up the leadership of those groups to contrary views and beliefs also opens up the possibility of people purposely undermining the meetings. What if all the Christians or Muslims joined the Atheist club just to proselytize and changed it to reflect their beliefs? What if Anti-theists led Christian or Muslim groups just to ridicule their faith?
I’m glad that as a Christian College we allow students to interact with other beliefs in a more respectful environment and protect them from such discrimination by allowing equal access to our facilities. The irony is that as a Christian College we are more accepting of people with differing beliefs than these secular colleges and universities that have chosen to undermine diversity.
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