Limiting membership

WASHINGTON-Almost six years ago, students attempted to form a chapter of the Christian Legal Society at the University of California's Hastings Law School. The school refused to recognize the student group on the grounds that it discriminated, allowing only those who signed a statement of basic Christian commitments to become voting members or leaders of the group.

The denial of official student group status meant that the Christian Legal Society (CLS) chapter didn't have the same access to space on campus, the student email network, or the student activity fund. Based on its "all-comers" policy that requires clubs to accept anyone into membership, the school argued that it shouldn't be providing resources to any group that discriminates.

"I had no idea CLS existed at Hastings at all," said Marina Grabchuk, a second-year law student at Hastings who is a Christian. "There's a Filipino club, there's a Muslim club, there's a Jewish club. There wasn't a Christian club."

Grabchuk camped out in front of the U.S. Supreme Court so she could hear the oral arguments Monday in the case the CLS brought against Hastings. The group sued to be recognized, a case it lost before a California judge, then lost again before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The high court agreed to hear the case in December, a sign that, if history is any precedent, the justices may want to overturn the 9th Circuit's ruling.

"If Hastings is correct, a student who does not believe the Bible can lead a Christian Bible study," Michael McConnell, the lead lawyer for CLS, argued in front of the nine justices Monday.

"It may be an ill-advised policy, but the school says, 'It's our policy,'" said Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, hinting that she believes the school's policy toward student groups is constitutional, a central question in the case. If the school wants to promote diversity within groups, she posited, let it.

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia and Sam Alito all expressed doubt about the strength of the school's arguments.

"It seems to me that your position is continually evolving," said Roberts to Gregory Garre, the lead lawyer for Hastings.

"It is so weird to require the campus Republican club to admit Democrats," Scalia burst out. "That's crazy. Is there any other university in the country that applies this policy?"

Justice Stephen Breyer, part of the court's liberal bloc, seemed conflicted about the case: "I feel I need more facts and I don't have them."

The undercurrent of the case is the clash between the Christian group's First Amendment rights and the public school's mandate to squelch discrimination based on sexual orientation. Hastings argues that since CLS members must subscribe to a Christian lifestyle-which excludes promiscuity and homosexuality-the group is discriminating based on sexual orientation. The CLS argues that it is simply exercising its right to organize around a shared set of commitments and standards of conduct.

"[The case] does not take sides on the debates our country is having over sexual orientation," McConnell told me on the steps of the court after the arguments. He would make the same arguments about freedom of groups to associate if he was representing a gay group, he said.

The court will likely issue a ruling in the next couple months, before its next term begins in October.