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Syracuse U. Won’t Recognize Conservative Student Group Over Dedication to U.S. Constitution

Syracuse U. Won’t Recognize Conservative Student Group Over Dedication to U.S. Constitution

“exclusionary to international students”

Young Americans for Freedom requires members to believe in the U.S. Constitution. Syracuse University thinks that might be too exclusionary.

Campus Reform reports:

Syracuse U: U.S. Constitution is ‘exclusionary’ to some students

Syracuse University denied an application for Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) to become a Registered Student Organization (RSO), stating, as one of its reasons for doing so, that requiring students to believe in the U.S. Constitution is “exclusionary to international students.”

The Syracuse Office of Student Activities denied YAF’s application, in part because members must support the “Sharon Statement,” which is a statement of support for the U.S. Constitution. Syracuse took issue with the Sharon Statement, alleging that adhering to it violates the college’s policy of non-discrimination.

“The Board considers the ‘Sharon Statement’ to be contradictory to Article XI Statement of Non-Discrimination,” Syracuse’s RSO Review Board stated in its rejection email to the group, according to documents obtained by Campus Reform. “Additionally, requiring students to agree in the superiority of the U.S. Constitution is exclusionary to international students and other individuals.”

Additionally, Syracuse’s RSO Review Board took issue with the fact that Young Americans for Freedom is associated with its parent organization, Young America’s Foundation, which the board claims has “extensive control” over the former organization.

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Comments

Translation: We don’t like your friends, so we don’t like you either.

It would be a really interesting adventure to dig through every campus organization and see if any of them have similar requirements. I’ll bet more than a few organizations have some “belief requirement” that some folks would find objectionable.

Whether you believe in it or not, it exists.

What a BS attempt to deny recognition….someone in that office thinks they are being cute.

ahad haamoratsim | February 20, 2019 at 2:11 pm

So Christian Legal Society, Campus Crusade for C (are they still around), Newman Society and Muslim Student’s Assn. would all have to take me as a member even though I don’t believe in Christianity or in Islam? Sorry, that’s insane.

This can be easily beaten.

Either modify the charter to some blanket statement about all being welcome, establish precedent in the charter statements of other student orgs, or both.

In the case of precedent establishment, the office has to then decided whether to revoke the charters of all of those other orgs or let the one that triggered them pass.