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Abstract: 

Apparently, despite everything we have been taught, not all discrimination is bad. Or, at least, it’s not illegal. In fact, discriminating against the discriminators may be unconstitutional, in the context of a college’s failure to recognize (or action to derecognize) discriminating student organizations. This article is not meant to be a thoroughgoing analysis of every litigated or publicly hashed case involving discrimination by a student organization. The sheer volume of these controversies recently has almost created a campus-of-the- month effect; this month, Brown University is in the crosshairs (see www.thefire. org). Instead, the purpose of this article is to examine two similar campus experiences that recently resulted in litigation and which produced diametrically opposing results. Perhaps the purpose is more to show the unsettled nature of these controversies than to give hard and fast rules for your campus on whether it can or cannot derecognize or refuse to recognize student organizations that discriminate in their membership and/or leadership requirements.

Keywords: Brown University; Alpha Iota Omega Christian Fraternity v. Moeser; Christian Legal Society v. Mary Kay Kane; Christian Legal Society v. Walker; United States v. O’Brien;

Affiliations:  1: Editor.