Facing a lawsuit, Ohio State University backed down on a policy that prevented a Christian group from choosing its leaders based on religious criteria.
The school's non-discrimination policy was at odds with the Christian Legal Society's rule barring non-Christians and homosexuals from holding office.
The university threatened to revoke the groups registered student status based on a policy that says "discrimination against an individual based upon ... religion [or] sexual orientation ... is prohibited."
"It makes no sense to require a student-led organization to admit people as officers who can undermine the group's very reason for existence," said Jordan Lorence, senior counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, which supported the campus group.
Lorence noted the Supreme Court "has ruled repeatedly that organizations like CLS have the right to determine their own membership and to require that their members agree with the beliefs of the group."
The CLS made an initial adjustment, allowing non-Christians and homosexuals as members but not officers, after university officials received two complaints about the group's alleged violation of university policy.
The chapter proposed that the school non-discrimination policy be revised to exempt religious student groups from the religious, creed and sexual orientation components with respect to selection of members and officers.
But in its review process, Ohio State repeatedly deemed the chapter's proposed language unacceptable.
In response, the CLS chapter filed a lawsuit March 12 against university officials in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio.
Last Friday, however, the school agreed to allow religious student organizations to restrict membership in order to remain consistent with their beliefs.
Along with the lawsuit, pressure on the university came from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, which wrote to officials on behalf of a broad interfaith coalition of Muslim and Christian student organizations that contended the policy interfered with the First Amendment's guarantees of religious freedom and free association.
"A Muslim organization has a right to be Muslim. A Jewish organization has a right to be Jewish. A Christian organization has a right to be Christian," said Greg Lukianoff, FIRE's director of legal and public advocacy. "It is not tolerance but intolerance to forbid such voluntary associations."
Meanwhile, in another case involving the Alliance Defense Fund, a federal district court judge in Texas struck down restrictive "speech zone" and "speech code" policies at Texas Tech University.
ADF attorneys also filed suit against University of North Carolina officials August 25 for denying recognition to a fraternity that refused to sign the school's non-discrimination policy.