Campus activism makes for interesting court decisions.  Traditionally, universities have served as battlegrounds for major social issues confronting not only students but the rest of society.  Often, these disputes spill out of the classroom and into the courtroom, where student affairs expose fundamental questions about what rules should restrict or direct a nation’s centres of higher learning.

For decades, the major court decisions in North America arising from campus events have generally stemmed from left-wing activism.  Recently, however, religious groups have approached the courts to address instances of perceived injustice suffered at the hands of administrators or student politicians.  In Canada, an anti-abortion group, Youth Protecting Youth, has made headlines because student governments have taken steps to restrict its ability to voice its message on campus with the same rights and privileges as other student clubs (see here for a previous post on the subject).

Similar confrontations are occurring south of the border – and the decisions keep on coming.  Here is a recent post explaining one example.  Yesterday, Inside Higher Ed, an impressive online source for news and opinion involving higher education, ran an interesting article on a recent judgment from a high level appelate court in the US, ruling that the University of Wisconsin at Madison improperly refused to fund activities of a Roman Catholic student group, placing unconstitutional limits on activities that included worship.  The central issues seems to have been whether the university could refuse to grant funding with respect to such events, or whether it had to consider them to be in the same category as an other extracurricular activities.

Although the constitutional background is quite different in the US and Canada, it is fascinating to watch the types of issues and arguments that are raised by parties on the various sides of these disputes and, more importantly, to see how courts are reacting to them.  Recent cases in the US have shown that courts have been fairly supportive of religious student groups claiming discrimination. 

 The cultural authority held by religion has waned considerably over the past decades to the extent that now religious groups are increasingly being made to feel, particularly on campuses, as the targets of prejudice.  As social attitudes towards religion continue to shift, and religious student groups establish a growing presence on campuses with the support of affiliated communities elsewhere, we should expect courts to spend even more time piecing apart the basic question of what role religion should play within public educational institutions.

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