Christian Legal Society v. Martinez
| Christian Legal Society v. Martinez | |
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| Argued April 19, 2010 Decided June 28, 2010 |
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| Full case name | Christian Legal Society Chapter of the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, aka Hastings Christian Fellowship v. Martinez, et al. |
| Docket nos. | 08-1371 |
| Citations | 561 U.S. 661 (more) |
| Argument | Oral argument |
| Prior history | Judgment for defendants affirmed, 319 Fed. Appx. 645 (CA9), cert. granted, 558 U. S. 661 (2011) |
| Subsequent history | None |
| Holding | |
| The policy of Hastings, which requires student groups to accept all students regardless of their status or beliefs in order to obtain official recognition, is a reasonable, viewpoint-neutral condition on access to the forum; it therefore does not transgress First Amendment limitations. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed and remanded. | |
| Court membership | |
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| Case opinions | |
| Majority | Ginsburg, joined by Stevens, Kennedy, Breyer, Sotomayor |
| Concurrence | Stevens |
| Concurrence | Kennedy |
| Dissent | Alito, joined by Roberts, Scalia, Thomas |
| Laws applied | |
| U.S. Const. amend. I | |
Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, 561 U.S. 661 (2011), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court upheld, against a First Amendment challenge, the policy of the University of California, Hastings College of the Law governing official recognition of student groups, which required the groups to accept all students regardless of their status or beliefs in order to obtain recognition.
Hastings required that recognized student organizations allow students to participate regardless of the student's status or beliefs. One student organization, the Christian Legal Society (CLS), required members to subscribe to a "Statement of Beliefs" and refrain from certain proscribed behavior. Hastings denied the CLS recognition as a student organization. The beliefs and behavior at issue were those of LGBT students; neither those students, nor those who advocated for them, were allowed to become voting members.
The CLS sued, arguing that the university, as a public institution, could not restrict the group's rights to freedom of speech, association, and religion; the National Center for Lesbian Rights represented Hastings Outlaw, a campus gay rights group that joined acting chancellor and dean Leo P. Martinez to defend the policy.Latham & Watkins decided to represent Hastings pro bono, and former Solicitor General Gregory G. Garre argued the case at the Supreme Court.
CLS argued that Hastings could alter its policy to allow organizations to exclude a student if the student's "beliefs and conduct" did not correspond with those of the student organization but not allow a student to be excluded from an organization based on the student's "status", that is, race or gender. Justice Ginsburg, writing for the majority, said that Hastings would then have to review each organization's exclusionary rules to determine "whether a student organization cloaked prohibited status exclusion in belief-based garb". She offered the example of a hypothetical "Male-Supremacy Club" that forbade a female member from running for its presidency, leaving Hastings to determine whether her election bid was denied because of her sex or because she did not adhere to the doctrine of male supremacy. Since the particular issue in the case involved the exclusion of homosexual students, CLS had asserted that it did not restrict membership based on sexual orientation but based on "conduct and belief that the conduct is not wrong". Ginsburg rejected that distinction, noting that with respect to sexual orientation the court has "declined to distinguish between status and conduct" and offering the parallel from Bray v. Alexandria Women's Health Clinic: "A tax on wearing yarmulkes is a tax on Jews".
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