Many Religious Colleges Admit LGBTQ Applicants But Refuse To Recognize Their Student Clubs

Following up on my previous post, Samford University Denies Student Application To Form Cumberland Law School LGBTQ Group: Chronicle of Higher Education, Demand Grows for Religious Colleges to Recognize LGBTQ Clubs. Often, the Chances Are Slim.:

Angela Whitlock and seven other students marched across the campus of Samford University, a Christian liberal-arts institution in Homewood, Ala., one morning in March. Several people in the group wore T-shirts with an image of Justice holding her scales. “OUTLAW,” the shirts read, in rainbow and black lettering. “Never Hide. Justice & Pride.”

In her hand, Whitlock, a 35-year-old Black lesbian woman, clutched OUTLaw’s first formal response, endorsed by eight other student groups, to a fall 2022 decision by Samford’s president, Beck A. Taylor, not to recognize the organization, a group that supports and affirms LGBTQ and allied law students, representing more than 50 of the roughly 430 students at the university’s Cumberland School of Law.

The group’s ability to function on campus since its inception in 2021 has been increasingly restricted. Members of OUTLaw cannot set up a table or booth on campus, reserve space, sponsor Cumberland events, have or sell gear outside of the group, or publicly represent themselves as affiliated with the law school or the university, according to Whitlock.

“Our organizations are proud to be a part of Samford University,” the letter stated. “But until OUTLaw is allowed to exist, the dignity of Cumberland’s LGBTQ students is only diminished.”

OUTLaw’s fight is part of an increasingly contentious movement by LGBTQ groups to gain official status on religious campuses across the country. While it’s difficult to say exactly how many LGBTQ clubs, official or unofficial, exist at religious colleges in the United States, calls for their recognition and acceptance are becoming a nearly universal dilemma for such institutions. Colleges across denominations that have long espoused religious beliefs they argue prevent them from recognizing LGBTQ groups — but not from enrolling LGBTQ students — are being challenged by a student population that is increasingly demanding equal resources and recognition. Many colleges have not acquiesced, leaving these groups to operate underground.

“Being underground harkens back to being closeted, being forced and shoved aside. Being unrecognized. Being invisible and erased. And that is what is happening to these students,” said Erin Green, a campus and alumni organizer for the Religious Exemption Accountability Project. Green led underground LGBTQ movements at Azusa Pacific University and Biola University, two of the colleges she attended. “It’s as if the school is saying, ‘You are not here and we do not recognize your worth, dignity, and value.’”

Yeshiva University’s Pride Alliance made headlines last year when former and current students sued the institution for violating New York City Human Rights Law — which prohibits discrimination in education and other areas — by refusing to recognize the group. The suit, which argued that Yeshiva is an educational institution before it is a religious corporation, made it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court before being bounced back to state courts. And so far, New York State judges have sided with the Pride Alliance. Arguing on the grounds of religious freedom, Yeshiva University has thus far said it will not back down and is expected to take the case back to the Supreme Court. …

In federal courts, a lawsuit originally filed in early 2021 against the U.S. Department of Education and citing the policies of 31 religious colleges argued that colleges should not be able to qualify for federal funds under Title IX if they discriminate against LGBTQ people — which is currently allowed at institutions with a religious exemption. A U.S. district court dismissed the case, but the plaintiffs filed an appeal in March. …

Some religious colleges view themselves as bastions of principle, standing against a cultural tide that threatens to overwhelm their religious values. Just as a refusal to accept LGBTQ groups is a symbol of inequity for some students, it is a symbol of fortitude and strong religious values for some donors and parents. Several religious institutions have in fact granted full recognition to LGBTQ student groups — including Fordham University, Southern Methodist University, and the University of the South — but many others still maintain that such recognition runs counter to their religious values. Campus Pride, an LGBTQ advocacy group that rates campuses for their inclusivity, considers 22 colleges with religious affiliations to be “LGBTQ friendly.”

More than a dozen LGBTQ alumni and current students from religious colleges spoke to The Chronicle about their own struggles to find a place at their institution. Several were involved in starting informal support groups and clubs, protesting the administration, and organizing as alumni to support current students. Some found community with other LGBTQ students only after graduation, through private Facebook groups and word of mouth. Others actively spoke with their administrators while still enrolled to try and find a middle ground where an LGBTQ-student resource would be allowable under the college’s guidelines.

OUTLaw is the second LGBTQ student group at Samford University in about six to seven years to seek formal recognition. The university leadership has remained firm.

“OUTLaw’s not going away. Queer students on campus are not going away,” Whitlock said. “We are paying to be here, the same money that our peers are paying to have an education here. And so we deserve to have the same benefits that they all have.” …

The Council for Christian Colleges & Universities, to which colleges like Samford University belong, is one of the largest associations of evangelical colleges, representing 141 institutions in the United States. The council is “committed to supporting, protecting, and promoting the value of integrating the Bible — divinely inspired, true, and authoritative — throughout” curricula and college activities, according to the council’s website, and it actively advocates for “marriage between a man and a woman, as clearly stated in the Bible.” While Shirley V. Hoogstra, the president of the council, declined to comment for this story, she has previously said that institutions that do not recognize same-sex relationships are not making “an anti-LGBTQ statement. It is a pro-truth statement.” About two-thirds of the colleges named in the federal lawsuit over the religious exemption to Title IX are member institutions of the council.

Some religious institutions, including Samford University, saw record enrollments in 2022 as many nonsectarian colleges struggled — a phenomenon experts in religious education attributed to the unique benefits a religious environment can provide. …

Religion and spiritual growth have been woven into Samford University’s fabric since it was founded by Baptists as Howard College, in 1841.

Students are required to complete a certain number of credits through the “Convocation program” by attending campus worship, approved community-service opportunities, guest-speaker events, etc. The goal, the university says in the student handbook, is to “integrate faith and learning from a distinctly Christian perspective.”

For many students and parents, the religious environment is a draw. Samford opened its doors to the largest first-year class in the university’s history in the fall of 2022. Its business school also noted record enrollment last year. …

Just a few weeks into her first term in 2021, Whitlock attended Cumberland’s student-organization fair with a friend of hers, who is also gay. They walked between tables in the law school’s courtyard, passing one for nearly every identity group, political belief, and social interest they could think of. But they couldn’t help but ask themselves, “Where’s our table?”

Her friend had the idea to start a LGBTQ group, and Whitlock ran with it, asking Lynn D. Hogewood, the director of academic support at the law school, if she would sponsor it. Hogewood says she agreed right away.

Typically, to get a club approved at Cumberland, students must draft a constitution and bylaws and find a faculty advisor. Then they schedule a meeting with the director of student services, and the dean generally approves student organizations from there. But OUTLaw was different. It was referred beyond the law school, to the university president. Hogewood said she was taken aback when Taylor, the current Samford president, issued his blanket denial.

“I was expecting recognition, like full recognition as a normal student organization. That really was my expectation. Angela had done everything right under the guidelines of what she was told,” Hogewood said.

In September 2022, the university doubled down, uninviting representatives of at least three campus-ministry groups and churches to its annual ministry fair, solely because they were LGBTQ-affirming.

“We decided to limit Samford’s formal ministry partnerships to churches and organizations that support Samford’s traditional view of human sexuality and marriage,” Taylor said in a video message to students. “We at Samford will not buy into the lie that culture tries to sell us — the lie that in order to truly love someone, one must be perfectly aligned with another’s personal, theological, or political beliefs.”

Taylor went on to say that Samford would not be excluding LGBTQ students or students and faculty who belong to progressive denominations. At the same time, he said that he was merely continuing the college’s historical tradition and views toward same-sex relationships and marriage. …

Even though Whitlock’s group has not gained formal recognition from Samford, it has continued to operate. Samford OUTLaw has four goals: create a community for students to be themselves; set up professional opportunities and connections for LGBTQ students; advance LGBTQ issues in the legal field and in the larger Birmingham community; and be a voice and advocate for the LGBTQ community in the law school.