Haahr’s bill sparks debate over college campus discrimination

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Missouri lawmakers will have to navigate a touchy debate on discrimination if they want to send HB104 to Gov. Jay Nixon’s desk, as evident by today’s lengthy and contentious hearing in the Senate.

Springfield Rep. Elijah Haahr, a Republican, sponsors “The Student Freedom of Association Act.” Haahr and the bill’s supporters say it’s designed to protect minority viewpoints on campus. Opponents say it will make it legal for certain student groups that receive state funds to discriminate against LGBT students.

Basically all student groups, by definition, discriminate against some students, Haahr says. Usually it is in ways citizens understand intuitively, like fraternities only accepting male pledges.

Haahr says that universities that adopt non-discrimination policies or “all comers” policies for student groups that take university funds are inadvertently hindering the right to free expression and association. A Christian student group has every right to require a firm belief in Jesus Christ in order to obtain membership, Haahr says, just like a Muslim or Jewish student group has the right to establish similar religiously-based requirements for membership.

Non-discrimination policies don’t technically allow for that happen, Haahr says, and that’s his problem.

“The problem is when some campuses come and adopt an all-comers policy and then selectively apply it only to the religious groups and not, say, the Greek organizations that are selective based on gender,” Haahr said.

At the University of Missouri-Columbia, for example, non-discrimination policies are not applied to student groups, including religious ones, which allows them to self-select membership or leadership based on faith. Haahr says Mizzou isn’t the problem, but the problem comes from campuses adopting “all-comers” policies.

“Technically, if an all-comers policy is adopted, no student group of any kind can have membership selection rules at all,” Haahr said. “You couldn’t have a female-only basketball team because they would violate that policy.”

Haahr cited several out-of-state examples of what he says he wants to prevent from happening in Missouri. At Vanderbilt University, a Christian student group was kicked off campus when they clarified that students had to have a personal commitment to Jesus Christ to be eligible for lead lership positions in their group. Vanderbilt dubbed the policy as discriminatory, and the group was stripped of their “official” status as a student group and, thus, ineligible for campus funds.

Haahr touted the support of certain Muslim and Jewish groups that see the bill as protecting their right to exist with a religiously-specific membership in a largely Christian country.

Imam Sohaib Sultan, a Muslim, and Rabbi Eitan Webb, both chaplains at Princeton University, sent in a written statement supporting Haahr’s bill.

“The long history of people of faith in this country shows that statutory protections for religious freedom are extremely important to Muslim and to Jewish religious practices. That is doubly true for institutions of higher learning and for Muslim and Jewish student groups on campus. Just recently a Jewish student was discriminated against at UCLA—a state university—because of her membership in certain Jewish campus student groups. Missouri would do well to prevent that kind of discrimination by enacting House Bill 104 and thus protecting all the different religious groups on Missouri campuses.”

ProgressMO and PROMO, both left-leaning groups vocally supportive LGBT rights, say that Haarh’s bill gives a free pass to groups to discriminate against LGBT students while also receiving state money.

“Discrimination is not a Missouri value,” ProgressMO Executive Director, Sean Nicholson, said. “That’s why you saw student leaders, faith leaders and community leaders from across the state testifying against Rep. Haarh’s campus discrimination bill today.”