Stanley Carlson-Thies

The Human Rights Campaign on December 18, 2015, released a report that it suggests shows that LGBT students are supposedly at risk of bullying and other harms if they enroll in certain religious colleges and universities. Hidden Discrimination: Title IX Religious Exemptions Putting LGBT Students at Risk, describes the exemption from the sex discrimination prohibition of Title IX, a federal law that applies to higher education institutions that receive federal support, and documents the 56 religious colleges and universities that have applied for an exemption and the 33 that received an exemption as to sexual orientation and/or gender identity discrimination.

The report intimates that LGBT students at exempted schools are in danger of harm, even though it provides no actual examples of harm and supposes that the schools’ convictions and practices concerning sexual orientation and gender identity are hidden from applicants. The report advocates that the schools be required to publicize receipt of an exemption. Several Democratic Senators are pushing the Obama administration to publish exemption requests on a website.

The HRC report concedes that the religious colleges and universities are within their rights to apply for an exemption, that the exemptions are granted routinely, and that requests for exemptions accelerated just as the federal government started interpreting Title IX’s ban on sex discrimination as also prohibiting sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination. In short, the federal administration (not Congress) is requiring higher education institutions to ignore distinctions related to sexual orientation and gender identity—and religious institutions that have firmly grounded religious convictions on those aspects of human sexuality are requesting, and receiving, the exemptions that the law requires they be given.

Do these exemptions mean that LGBT students at these institutions are “at risk” and the nature of these exceptions hidden?

Start with the second allegation. Is it really a big secret that Catholic, Southern Baptist, and other theologically and morally conservative colleges and universities do not hold the view of human sexuality that HRC celebrates? Generally speaking, it is not that difficult for a prospective student to locate on a religious college’s website a discussion of the institution’s religious and moral convictions and a copy of the campus’s community covenant or student handbook, with their discussions of student conduct expectations. Indeed, such easily accessible statements of standards, such as Gordon College’s community covenant, are easily found by reporters and others seeking to expose the alleged discriminatory nature of the religious institution. It is not difficult for students and their families to make well-informed decisions whether their convictions about sexual morality are mirrored by the colleges they are considering.

What about the risk? The report provides no evidence of any harm, but documents several stories of colleges enforcing behavioral requirements for all students.

Students who do attend a religious college may indeed encounter a sexual ethic quite different from that in society at large—and also a student conduct code that explicitly bans bullying, sexual harassment, and disrespect of those who are different, while mandating service, generosity, and concerted efforts to live harmoniously with everyone.

Congress put a religious exemption into Title IX so that federally supported religious higher education institutions can maintain their religious teachings about human sexuality. In routinely accepting applications from religious schools for exemptions, the Obama administration is not betraying the rights of LGBT students but only upholding the ability of morally conservative religious colleges and universities to maintain their distinctive convictions and policies.