Supreme Court Rules Against Government-Aided Discrimination

The Supreme Court ruled today in a 5-4 decision
that a publicly funded
law school need not provide funding and recognition to a campus group
with
policies that discriminate based on religion and sexual orientation.
People For
the American Way Foundation filed an amicus
brief with other civil rights organizations in support of Hastings
College
of Lawin the case, Christian Legal Society v. Martinez.The brief emphasized that the
Supreme
Court has repeatedly upheld the right of the states to withhold public
funding
that would support discrimination:

Michael B. Keegan, President of
People For the American Way Foundation, said:

"The Christian Legal Society's argument, that the government must
fund religious discrimination, turns the Bill of Rights on its head.
Nowhere
does the First Amendment imply that the government must actively aid
discrimination on the basis of religion or sexual orientation; in fact,
it
doesn't take a constitutional expert to point out the lines that say the
opposite. It's troubling that the Court's four conservative
justices were willing to invent a novel and backwards interpretation of
the
First Amendment. The majority exercised proper restraint and common
sense in
refusing to legitimize CLS's claim."