This isn’t an earth shattering suggestion, you know. It’s pretty damn common, especially at law schools. I (and significant parts of my class) were members of both the Federalist Society and the American Constitution Society - pretty much diametrically opposed. But they both had interesting speakers, and it never hurt to keep one’s options open as this was a time when certain government jobs were effectively closed to you if you couldn’t list the Federalists on your resume.
Seems to me the question is whether we are going to register all groups or have exceptions based on religion. I have no problem either way as long as it is consistent for groups that I may not like. Equal protection and all that. So if the ruling pisses me off, it will probably be correct. Scientology Legal Society.
Interestingly enough, there was a case involving Scientologists and this sort of “takeover” strategy. There was a cult study group, IIRC, and the Scientologists descended on it, voted their own leaders in, and by new bylaw removed Scientology from the list of cults.
Ahh, interesting.
Scalia was in the majority in B.S.A. v. Dale- he voted that the government cannot direct the B.S.A. to change their views on gays.
mswas, you’re exactly right in my case. My college (small private school) has a simple test for student organizations who want to use school resources (and particularly the small budget afforded to each club)- if a club allows everyone to join and to serve as officers, then they receive funding. If not, they’re still allowed to exist and to use campus buildings and the like for meetings, but they receive no money.
Funny thing is, there are two organizations on campus that fit this profile. One is the Christian Society, which disapproves of homosexuality (to what end, I’m not sure, but I don’t think they’d look kindly on non-straight students joining) and prohibits officers from dating outside of the Society. The other is the GLBTQ club, which is off-limits to straight people. Both of these clubs consciously chose their status as unfunded in order to maintain their discriminatory membership rules. Very interesting.
appleciders Sounds good to me.
How does the GLBTQ club verify the status? If I’m a straight guy with a GF, then I can just say I’m bi. But maybe it’s just not a problem…
It’s not hard to imagine an initiation ceremony for that one. 
Reminds me of the punchline to a joke: “Man, you’re going to HATE Wednesdays.”
Well… let us just quote from Scripture:
First Corinthians 5, v. 9-11: (From Paul)
“I have written you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people - not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. But now I am writing you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral, greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard, or a swindler. With such a man, do no even eat.”
He he
Christians of every political or religious persuasion must be cringing at Paul’s words.
Doomed.
I suspect that there’s some sort of technical difference between saying specifically, “we only accept Jews who conform to such and such proofs of Jewness”, and between not saying anything about ethnicity/religion in your acceptance criteria, but in practice only accepting Jews who conform to such and such proofs of Jewness.
Except that there doesn’t appear to be any other permitted acceptance criteria. That is, if you can show you’re a student, you cannot be refused membership.
Can anyone offer a coherent basis for concluding that persons who wish to “join” an organization primarily for the purpose of disrupting it have a right to do so? Where would such a right be found?
Has anyone suggested such a right exists?
The fact is, under the rules in place at this institution, if you don’t let every student join, you don’t get recognition. It isn’t about whether there is a ‘right’ to join any organization.
If there were a student who joined a group but was disruptive, would that group be allowed to kick that person out, and still receive recognition and aid?
The “right” is the one student organizations have under the school’s rules to have publicly-funded school recognition and support. Why is there an obligation, under the school’s rules or the law in general, to have that right attached to an obligation to permit disruption of the organization? Why does anyone have a right, under the school’s rules or the law, to disrupt an organization solely because it has taxpayer support? Do disruptors have a superior First Amendment right to that of organizers? Why would that be?
And where is the OP even acknowledging that legitimate organizations have a legitimate interest in not permitting disruption by the asswipes he’s defending?
CurtC, the discussion appears to be about the answer to your question being No.
One man’s disruption is fifty men’s needed change. The idea I’m floating here is that there might be 25 Jewish students in this group. If “Jews for Jesus” brings 26 members, they can fundamentally change the organization – elect their own officers, contribute to their own charities – and those directions would be anathema to the REAL Jews.
Of course, the real Jews could leave and start the Real Jewish Law Society, which the Jews for Jesus could then similar disrupt, leading to the formation of the Real, Actual Jewish Law Society, and so forth.
That doesn’t seem wise. It seems great for viewpoints which enjoy the majority.
I really don’t see your problem with this, Bricker. There is nothing set in stone about an organization - it changes as its membership changes. If its membership changes to a sufficient degree to cause a 180 degree change in the organization, then so be it. If people no longer wish to be a part of that organization, then they leave, and start a new one.
Now, if excluding people is considered essential to the organization, there is a method of doing that - you just don’t apply for official recognition. If you do, however, you are using the University’s brand value - and if that happens, the University has an interest in protecting itself. The method it has chosen to protect itself with is by preventing recognized organizations discriminating as regards to prospective members.
A consequence of this is the (highly unlikely) situation you discuss. But I see the alternative (official support for organizations that can practice discrimination in their membership decisions) to be worse.
Which is more problematic do you think? Hastings Jewish Legal Society being open to Jews for Jesus to join, or Hastings Klan Chapter, no blacks allowed?
Would it change your mind if I could point to a similar, real-life example?
I think I mentioned it briefly earlier in the thread – Hart v. Cult Awareness Network, 13 Cal.App.4th 777 (1993):
Essentially, a crowd of Scientologists sought to join an organization whose mission was to warn people about cults, with the purpose of removing Scientology from the list of cults the organization warns of.
As I said earlier in the thread, I have seen it happen before as well (Monday Club taking over the Liberals at Oxford). But I don’t see it as necessarily a bad thing. And even if it were, the alternative is significantly worse.