According to the Court: A Christian student organization (Christian Legal Society chapter) doesn’t have their First Amendment rights violated by a school’s nondiscrimination policy that prevents the group from prohibiting students from becoming members who engage in “unrepentant homosexual conduct.”
The case, Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, was another 5-4 decision. It was a somewhat surprising result, but one can’t predict Kennedy (who joined with the majority).
Here’s the opening of Justice Alito’s dissent:
The proudest boast of our free speech jurisprudence is that we protect the freedom to express ?the thought that we hate.? United States v. Schwimmer, 279 U. S. 644, 654?655 (1929) (Holmes, J., dissenting). Today?s decision rests on a very different principle: no freedom for expression that offends prevailing standards of political correctness in our country?s institutions of higher learning.
The Hastings College of the Law, a state institution, permits student organizations to register with the law school and severely burdens speech by unregistered groups. Hastings currently has more than 60 registered groups and, in all its history, has denied registration to exactly one: the Christian Legal Society (CLS). CLS claims that Hastings refused to register the group because the law school administration disapproves of the group?s viewpoint and thus violated the group?s free speech rights.
The liberals on the Court are the biggest threat to the First Amendment in years–from their attacks on political speech to their protection of speech restrictions on politically incorrect speech, they are doing what they can to undermine the First Amendment.
