Virginia State University (VSU) is being sued in federal court by two Christian student organizations that allege the university removed their official campus recognition and placed them under the control of a university-appointed minister.
Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) Senior Counsel Tyson Langhofer told Fox News Digital that colleges and universities have moved away from promoting intellectual diversity and the pursuit of truth.
“Higher education has really broke from its long-standing desire to promote intellectual diversity and to actually seek truth, and, instead, they are essentially telling students that any disagreement, that certain speech is violence and that hearing difference of opinions on important topics is actually not encouraged. It’s actually discouraged,” Langhofer said.
ADF attorneys filed the lawsuit on behalf of Women of Victory and Bethel Campus Fellowship, two student chapters operating at VSU.
The legal challenge targets VSU’s revised Campus Ministries Policy. The groups argue that the policy violates the First Amendment by placing Christian organizations under university supervision while exempting non-Christian religious groups from the same requirements.
Under the policy, every Christian student-led ministry must operate under the “governance and influence” of VSU Campus Minister Thomas Wynn and an advisory board consisting of faculty members and other university personnel. The policy also prohibits student ministries from affiliating with their national parent organizations.
Langhofer said the policy unconstitutionally burdens Christian students because of their religious beliefs.
“The message that it would send is that the First Amendment means what it says: that you can’t treat secular groups better than religious groups,” Langhofer told Fox News Digital. “You can’t treat one religious group worse than another religious group, regardless of your motives.
“It doesn’t matter whether your motives are unity or things like that. You can’t have one single campus pastor on campus that is able to control all Christian groups and then exclude the Muslim group and allow them to receive all of the benefits.”
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The legal filing states that non-Christian and Muslim student organizations are not subject to the same mandate.
The lawsuit contends that the policy affects Women of Victory and Bethel Campus Fellowship, which are local chapters of national organizations that conduct Bible studies, leadership programs and spiritual development activities for students both on and off campus.
Both organizations continue to appear on VSU’s official website, but ADF representatives said the online directory does not accurately show their current operating status at the university.
The groups are asking the court to order VSU to restore their status as fully recognized registered student organizations, or RSOs.
Langhofer identified theological differences between the university’s campus minister and the student organizations as a central concern arising from the policy.
“I don’t know whether that’s the fruit of this or not,” Langhofer said when discussing the policy’s origins.
“What it ultimately comes down to is an attempt to control what these groups are doing by the university, rather than allowing these groups to continue to operate in the same fashion as they’ve operated for a long time.”
He said decades of legal precedent prevent public universities from targeting student organizations because of their religious viewpoints.
“The Supreme Court has held for a very long time that all student groups on campus must be treated equally, and you can’t single some out simply because of what they believe,” Langhofer told Fox News Digital.
Virginia State University did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
