* Michael Paulson, “Colleges and Evangelicals Collide on Bias Policy,” New York Times, June 9, 2014.

“In a collision between religious freedom and antidiscrimination policies, the student group [at Bowdoin College], and its advisers, have refused to agree to the college’s demand that any student, regardless of his or her religious beliefs, should be able to run for election as a leader of any group, including the Christian association.

“Similar conflicts are playing out on a handful of campuses around the country, driven by the universities’ desire to rid their campuses of bias, particularly against gay men and lesbians, but also, in the eyes of evangelicals, fueled by a discomfort in academia with conservative forms of Christianity. The universities have been emboldened to regulate religious groups by a Supreme Court ruling in 2010 that found it was constitutional for a public law school in California to deny recognition to a Christian student group that excluded gays. . . .

“Some institutions, including the University of Florida, the University of Houston, the University of Minnesota and the University of Texas, have opted to exempt religious groups from nondiscrimination policies, according to the Christian Legal Society. But evangelical groups have lost official status at Tufts University, the State University of New York at Buffalo and Rollins College in Florida, among others . . . .”

* Kevin Drum, “Campus Christian Groups Should Be Allowed to Remain Christian,” Mother Jones, June 10, 2014. http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2014/06/campus-christian-groups-should-be-allowed-remain-christian

“[I]f it were up to me, I’d allow Jewish groups to remain Jewish and Christian groups to remain Christian if that’s what they want to do. It’s hard to see the harm.”

H.T. to InterVarsity Christian Fellowship.