Author: David French

David French is a Senior Counsel at the American Center for Law and Justice.

Why Universities Can’t Grant Religious Liberty

From the site of the John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy. Not long ago, the university was seen as a world apart–an idyllic enclave where our studious youth learned the virtues of citizenship, cheered hard for the football team, and read the great classics of Western thought. The “ivory tower” was more an […]

Read More

Is the Court Changing Its Stand on Religious Freedom?

On June 28, 2010, the Supreme Court of the United States narrowly ruled in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez that a university’s “all-comers” nondiscrimination policy trumped the right of a Christian student organization to select its leaders according to the group’s religious beliefs.   According to the Supreme Court, a Christian student group confronted with […]

Read More

The Road to Censorship, Paved With Good Intentions

For more than a decade, universities have forced Christian student groups to fight a rather puzzling battle. In a campus environment where it’s assumed that Democratic student groups can reserve leadership for Democrats, environmentalist groups can be run by actual environmentalists, and socialist groups can have socialist leaders, Christian groups have been fighting for the […]

Read More

CLS v. Martinez: A Curious and Mistaken Decision

Ponder this: According to the most current Supreme Court authority, a group of students can form a local chapter of a violent national organization, refuse to promise that they won’t disrupt the campus, and still have a right to be recognized by the university. At the same time, however, if the university has a certain, […]

Read More