Supreme Court: University can require student groups to admit all students
Flickr photo by Clyde RobinsonIt's official – to get university funding, College Democrats have to allow Tea Partiers to join and religious groups have to admit atheists.
In a narrow 5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday upheld a UC Hastings College of the Law policy that denied official status to a Christian student organization that excluded gays, saying the university has a right to withhold school funds from groups that exclude some students.
The decision won praise from Hastings, whose supporters in the case included other universities, the American Civil Liberties Union and several gay-rights groups.
"Today's ruling sends a message that public universities need not lend their name and support to groups that discriminate," said Steven R. Shapiro, Legal Director for the ACLU, in a statement.
Several free-speech groups decried the ruling, however, saying it trampled First Amendment rights. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education and the Student Press Law Centersided with the Christian Legal Society, for example.
Could $416 million push school districts to reform by Friday?
After months of budget cuts, layoffs and an embarrassing poor showing in the Obama administration's reform contest, California finally got a nearly $416 million break.
Last week, state Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell announced California was awarded $415,844,376 from the U.S. Department of Education to help fund education reform. The money, which comes through the federal School Improvement Grant (SIG) program, is set aside for 188 schools that were designated by the state as "persistently low-achieving."
Last week, state Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell announced California was awarded $415,844,376 from the U.S. Department of Education to help fund education reform. The money, which comes through the federal School Improvement Grant (SIG) program, is set aside for 188 schools that were designated by the state as "persistently low-achieving."
'I am very grateful to President Obama and U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan for making this critical funding available for California’s persistently lowest-achieving schools,' said O’Connell in an e-mailed statement. 'This grant will help fund efforts to turn around persistently struggling schools in order to prepare their students for success in college and careers.'