Purdue University: Refusal to Allow Christian Women’s Group to Require Christian Membership

Case Materials

• "Victory for Religious Freedom at Purdue," FIRE Press Release, May 19, 2004: Purdue University has finally granted a Christian women’s housing group an exemption from a mandatory “nondiscrimination” policy that would have made voluntary religious association on Purdue’s campus impossible. The policy threatened the housing of the group as well as its very existence. On April 19, 2004, the women of the Stewart Cooperative housing group received a letter from Purdue’s Office of the Dean of Students granting them an exemption from the policy, which effectively would have barred this Christian group from being Christian.
• "Purdue Recognizes Campus Group's Religious Liberty," FIRE Press Release, November 19, 2003: At Purdue University, a public university in Indiana, administrators told an association of Christian women, living together in a Cooperative Residence that the group owns, that they would either have to add a "non-discrimination" clause to their constitution or risk losing their status as a group with campus rights and, indeed, their very home. The clause would have required them not to consider sex or religious beliefs when choosing members, effectively prohibiting this Christian women's group from deciding to be exclusively Christian and female. FIRE wrote a letter on the group's behalf to Purdue's president, Martin Jischke, pointing out that the First Amendment's protections for voluntary association, freedom of expression, and freedom of religion forbid public institutions from forcing religious groups to abide by such policies. The letter reminded the university that "a Christian organization has a right to be Christian." To his credit, President Jischke responded quickly with assurances to FIRE that this and other religious groups would be exempted from this policy. FIRE wishes that all universities were so willing to promptly recognize their errors and do the right thing.
• "Letter from Purdue University President Martin C. Jischke to FIRE, November 10, 2003," November 10, 2003
• "FIRE Letter to Purdue University President Martin C. Jischke, November 4, 2003," November 4, 2003

Media Coverage

• "Campus Left to Christians, Conservatives: Shut Up!," Mark Tapscott, Townhall.com, December 24, 2005: Take California State University at San Bernadino, for example, where administrators refuse to charter the Christian Students Association because the group thinks its members should be professing Christians. Imagine that!
• "Conformity on campus," Marvin Olasky, World Magazine, December 18, 2004: Raucous students and ideologically identical professors set the tone at America's colleges and universities, but some student movements provide hope for change.
• "The Good and The Bad (Plus Some Ugly)," Rachel Zabarkes Friedman, National Review, October 11, 2004: Today's college campus is a study in contrasts. Professors and administrators cling to their grotesque orthodoxies, but students seem to be getting saner by the year. What follows are five of the most outrageous campus incidents of the last academic year, then five of the most heartening acts of courage.
• "Organization fights University's policy," The Purdue Exponent, May 26, 2004
• "Survey: many college students fuzzy on first amendment rights," Associated Press, Black Issues in Higher Education, January 1, 2004: PHILADELPHIA -- One out of four college students in a nationwide survey was unable to name any of the freedoms protected by the First Amendment, according to a free-speech watchdog group.