A second Christian student organization has filed suit against a public college in New York, challenging a policy that prevents the group from requiring its leaders to be practicing Christians.
Campus Bible Fellowship filed the lawsuit last week in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York, Binghamton Division, against officials at SUNY Broome Community College.
The dispute centers on the college’s nondiscrimination policy, which bars CBF and at least one other Christian group from limiting leadership roles to students who profess the Christian faith. “SUNY Broome refuses to officially recognize CBF as a student club, preventing it from reserving campus space and accessing financial resources,” reads the complaint.
The lawsuit alleges that SUNY Broome is violating the group’s First Amendment rights by enforcing a policy that, according to CBF, is not applied equally to all campus organizations. The complaint says “other student clubs at SUNY Broome” are permitted to “limit their leadership positions and/or membership rights to select students.”
CBF is represented by Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative legal organization that has argued multiple First Amendment cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.
The filing follows a separate lawsuit by InterVarsity Christian Fellowship challenging the same SUNY Broome nondiscrimination policy.
“In the past fifteen years, the Supreme Court has repeatedly held that religious organizations have a fundamental First Amendment right to freely select religious leaders without state interference,” the InterVarsity lawsuit reads.
“SUNY Broome’s actions here not only interfere but also seek to control a core component of InterVarsity’s governance, faith, and doctrine. And in the past decade, the Supreme Court has warned governments three times that they cannot deny religious organizations access to benefits because of their religious beliefs.”
InterVarsity’s SUNY Broome chapter is represented by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a Washington, D.C.-based legal organization that has litigated multiple religious freedom cases.
