A new university policy will allow student religious groups, including Tufts Christian Fellowship (TCF), to request University Chaplaincy permission for religious exemption from the university's nondiscrimination clause in choosing their leaders when applying for Tufts Community Union (TCU) recognition.
The procedure was announced yesterday as an official resolution in the appeal case that TCF brought to the Committee on Student Life (CSL) after the TCU Judiciary voted in October to derecognize the group.
The new policy changes the guidelines for the Judiciary's group recognition process to allow religious groups to argue for "justified departures from the Tufts nondiscrimination policy" in their leadership decisions for Chaplaincy-approved religious reasons.
The decision also allows TCF to remain "conditionally recognized" - without the rights to apply for TCU Senate funding - while it reapplies for recognition under the new guidelines within 60 days.
The CSL, chaired this year by Associate Professor of Biology Philip Starks and senior Rebecca Spiewak, is a body of faculty members and students whose responsibilities include hearing appeals of decisions handed down by the Judiciary.
The CSL was asked at the beginning of last month to hear and make a ruling in the TCF appeal case after the Judiciary removed the evangelical Christian group's TCU recognition status because clauses in its constitution violated the TCU Constitution's nondiscrimination clause.
Its ultimate decision, over which the committee deliberated for the past month and released yesterday in an email to the student body, has two major clauses.
"The [Judiciary] followed its policy correctly in de-recognizing the TCF"
The decision first affirms the Judiciary's vote in October to strip TCF of its status as a TCU-recognized group.
"Regarding the specific question of whether [TCUJ] acted inappropriately, we find no significant fault with the [Judicary]," the decision reads. "No human process is perfect, and while variation across decision processes should be minimized, it is our finding that the [Judiciary] followed its policy correctly in de-recognizing the TCF."
The Judiciary made the initial decision in September to put TCF's recognition status on hold following the annual spring semester group recognition period.
During the process, by which the Judiciary reviews the policies and governing documents of all TCU recognized groups on campus, it found that a clause in TCF's constitution requiring students assuming leadership positions to affirm their belief in a series of tenets called a Basis of Faith, or eight "basic Biblical truths of Christianity," was exclusionary to students who do not hold these beliefs and violated the TCU Constitution's nondiscrimination clause.
TCF made revisions to its constitution during the weeks that followed, but the revised version it sent to the Judiciary in October still contained faith-based requirements for leaders and was deemed to be in continued violation of the TCU Constitution.
Starks said that the committee had not found any fault with the Judiciary's processes or standards and does not recommend any internal changes to the body.
"Justified departure"
While the CSL upholds the Judiciary's decision to de-recognize TCF and denied the group's appeal, it simultaneously allows TCF to remain "conditionally recognized," which does not constitute de-recognition but also does not afford TCF the same rights as a recognized group.
The reapplication process, should TCF choose to participate without making changes to its constitution, would allow it to work with the University Chaplain - a position currently held ad interim by Rev. Patricia Budd Keppler - and the other chaplains who make up the Chaplaincy to develop a case for "justified departure" from the university's nondiscrimination policy and bring that argument to the Judiciary.
"Any characteristic that deviates from Tufts' nondiscrimination policies will need to be described very carefully," Starks said. "They'll need to be described [and] justified to the Chaplain."
This process of establishing justified departure from the policy would only be required of TCF if the group keeps the constitution's wording as it is now.
TCF also has the option of removing the clause requiring leaders to hold specified religious beliefs, thus freeing it to apply for TCU recognition without approval for "justified departure" from the Chaplaincy.
Senior Jessica Laporte, a member of TCF's leadership team, said that removing the clause or otherwise altering their constitution to avoid having to apply for "justified departure" through the Chaplaincy is among the options TCF will consider, but that the leadership team has yet to decide how it will respond to the decision.
"As of right now, we don't have any specific plans," Laporte said.
The new policy would allow TCF or any other religious group to attempt to prove to the Chaplaincy, and then to the Judiciary, that adherence to a particular set of religious beliefs is necessary as a criterion for leadership within the group even if the criterion violates the university nondiscrimination policy.
The university's nondiscrimination policy reads as follows:
"Tufts prohibits discrimination against and harassment of any [individual] because of race, color, national or ethnic origin, age, religion, disability, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity and expression, including a transgender identity, genetics, veteran status ... and any other characteristic protected ... under applicable federal or state law."
As part of the existing Judiciary recognition process, the Chaplaincy already reviews the constitutions of religious groups before they are allowed to apply for Judiciary recognition.
The CSL decision also emphasizes that any groups applying for recognition from the Judiciary must continue to adhere to the university's full nondiscrimination policy with respect to group membership.
Judiciary Chair Adam Sax, a senior, said that while it would be TCF's responsibility to prove to the Chaplaincy that it deserves religious exemption, once it were to do so, the Judiciary would have the final say in their recognition status.
"If a religious group wants to implement this policy ... that group still has to be approved in the Judiciary to be a group in the first place," Sax said.
If TCF successfully works with the Chaplaincy to establish a "justified departure," they would fall outside the university nondiscrimination policy and be able to keep the Basis of Faith in its constitution's leadership requirements. If the Judiciary does not find any other problems outside of that clause, Sax said that TCF's application for re-recognition would likely be approved.
A unanimous vote
According to Starks, the 12 voting faculty and student members of the CSL unanimously supported the decision's two major judgments - both that the Judiciary was correct in de-recognizing TCF and that this new exemption policy would adequately fill the void in policy regarding religious groups' leadership positions.
Although the Judiciary originally found TCF's constitutional clauses for leadership in violation of the TCU Constitution - the governing document for the TCU government, including the Senate and the Judiciary -- the CSL's decision focuses only on religious groups' relationship with the university-wide nondiscrimination policy.
The CSL combined the TCU Constitution and the university's nondiscrimination policy in the interest of simplicity, according to Starks. While the TCU Constitution's nondiscrimination clause is distinct from the university policy on discrimination, the constitution derives its language from Tufts' policy, he explained.
"It all comes from the same tree," Starks said. "The [Judiciary] policy cannot be in conflict with university policy."
Should TCF choose to apply for re-recognition by the Judiciary and go through the process of justifying its deviation from the university's nondiscrimination policy, the Judiciary will be expected to place an emphasis on clarity as it makes its decision, according to Starks.
"At that level, the [Judiciary] will be looking mostly for transparency and for whether or not that information is presented in a way that will be easily digestible by our student body," Starks said. "The policy that we're creating here really asks for transparency in any of these deviations from the nondiscrimination policy at Tufts."
A reasonable expectation
The new process for establishing "justified departure" is meant to serve as a compromise between the "reasonable" expectation that religious groups should be allowed to hold their leaders to certain belief standards and the university's commitment to upholding its own policy of nondiscrimination, Starks said.
"In leadership positions, individuals are often required to be exemplars of a particular approach, and I think it's natural then for a group built around a philosophy to expect that its leadership reflect that," he said.
Laporte said that TCF is in favor of any decision that attempts to reach such a compromise.
"We appreciate that the [CSL] recognizes that faith-based groups may need the freedom to use faith-based criteria in its leadership selection in order to remain consistent with the mission and beliefs of their faiths," she said. "We also appreciate the Committee's desire to protect all students on campus by both affirming the nondiscrimination policy and defining its proper context and application for student religious groups."
The process applies to any Chaplaincy-affiliated religious group that seeks recognition or re-recognition from the Judiciary from this point forward.
If a religious group's constitutional policy of selecting leaders based on religious doctrine is called into question by a member of the Tufts community or the Chaplaincy, however, it must receive approval from the Chaplaincy before it can apply or reapply for TCU recognition.
A chapter under fire
The Chaplaincy's list of recognized religious organizations includes TCF as well as 16 others, including the Muslim Students Association, the Catholic Community at Tufts, the Latter Day Saints Student Association and the Tufts Freethought Society, which describes itself online as a "community of atheists, agnostics, humanists, skeptics and friends at Tufts."
Complicating matters is TCF's dual role as a campus religious group but also as a chapter of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA (IVCF), an evangelical Christian mission on college campuses across the United States.
The Basis of Faith clause in TCF's constitution, the same clause that led to TCF's derecognition in October, is derived from a similar clause on IVCF's website that the national organization requires its chapters to retain in their constitutions.
IVCF provides religious resources, mentorship and financial assistance to its chapters, although members of TCF's leadership have said that the IVCF's influence over TCF is overemphasized and that TCF student leaders have the last word on all chapter policies.
Starks said the committee did not consider the relationship between TCF and IVCF in its handling of the case.
"The appeal that we received was very specific to our student body and our response is very specific to the student body," Starks said. "I haven't really taken into consideration the external organization. I'm very concerned about Tufts University."
