GREENSBORO, N.C.—A federal judge today granted the request of ADF attorneys and issued an order prohibiting the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from applying its troubled non-discrimination policy against religious student organizations.
“This order is great news for our clients,” said ADF Senior Counsel Gary McCaleb. “This injunction is the judge’s clear signal that the university’s policies are most likely unconstitutional and that there is a strong probability that we will ultimately prevail in this case.”
The injunction was issued in the case
Alpha Iota Omega Christian Fraternity v. Moeser in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina. Officials with UNC-Chapel Hill pulled the fraternity’s recognition as an official student organization last year because its leaders would not agree to a non-discrimination policy that would require the group to admit non-Christian members. Judge Frank Bullock today ordered the school not to apply the policy while the case is in litigation.
“The Supreme Court has ruled repeatedly that organizations like Alpha Iota Omega have the right to determine their own membership,” McCaleb said. “The judge had to issue this order because the university stubbornly refused to alleviate the problem with its policy in a consent decree, as he ordered last month.”
Judge Bullock wrote in today’s order that “a policy which imposes conditions for the receipt of benefits on a religious organization not imposed on non-religious organizations raises significant constitutional concerns and could be violative of the First Amendment….” The full text of the judge’s order can be read at
www.telladf.org/userdocs/AIOvM_PI_Order.pdf.
ADF is America’s largest legal alliance defending religious liberty through strategy, training, funding, and litigation.
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