Campus Conservatives will not be only RSO to dissolve
Editor’s note: To send a letter to the editor, please e-mail voices@cm-life.com
Dear editor,
Campus Conservatives may have been the first student organization to dissolve, but similar groups on campuses across the country will soon follow its path.
That’s because the federal Supreme Court ruled over the summer, in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, that registered student organizations cannot limit membership to students with shared beliefs.
The ruling means groups focused toward racial minorities, such as the Organization for Black Unity, cannot refuse membership to KKK members, who could then overrun the organization and disband it. The same is true for Christian organizations, which could be forced to dissolve unless religious doctrines are ignored by students.
And before anyone says that argument is absurd, it’s happened right here at CMU.
In the spring of 2007, then-members of the Gay-Straight Alliance tried joining Campus Conservatives for the sole purpose of launching a coup d’état and dissolving what was then CMU’s oldest, largest and most active political organization. (This incident was detailed in legal briefs filed before the Supreme Court, and justices even referred to it in their dissenting opinion.)
The inability of students to voluntarily associate with like-minded students will have a chilling effect on free speech and civic engagement on campuses such as CMU, which are already challenged by an apathetic student body that is largely ignorant of anything outside of “Jersey Shore” on MTV.
Sincerely,
Dennis Lennox II
Campus Conservatives Alumnus
Topinabee, Mich.
