Ted Cruz issues Yale Law School quite the ultimatum
The students had complained to the school after conservative students invited a conservative lawyer to speak on a landmark Supreme Court case.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) issued a warning to Yale Law School after the dean's response to leftist students.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is considering investigating or even a suing Yale Law school for what he says is “blacklist[ing] Christian organizations.”
The senator’s letter came just days after the controversy over conservative law students hosting a lawyer from a Christian legal group to discuss the Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, a hallmark case that the Supreme Court eventually took up. Leftist law students decried conservative law students inviting the Christian lawyer to speak on the topic, calling Alliance Defending Freedom, the organization for which the Christian lawyer works, a “hate group that does not belong on our campus and does not deserve legitimization,” according to the Washington Examiner.
[RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: GWU Student Bar Association labels Christian org a ‘hate group’]
The leftist students pressured the university to halt funding for students who want to complete religious-themed Summer Public Interest Fellowships. According to the Daily Wire, Yale Law School Dean Heather Gerken responded to the leftist students by stating in a letter that the school’s “nondiscrimination policy will extend to the Summer Public Interest Fellowship (SPIF), Career Options Assistance Program (COAP), and our post-graduate public interest fellowships.”
”Nondiscrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity and expression is a key component of the Law School’s nondiscrimination policy....We are grateful to members of the LGBTQ [community] for their leadership, their friendship, and their intellectual engagement. And we reaffirm our commitment that these students, faculty, and staff should not experience discrimination inside or outside this Law School.”
Cruz, who attended Princeton and Harvard, was not pleased with the Yale Law School dean’s answer. In a Thursday letter addressed to Gerken, Cruz left open the door to investigating the Ivy League school, and potentially even pursuing litigation.
”The First Amendment protects both free speech and the Free Exercise of religion. Yale’s new policy does neither,” Cruz wrote. “Instead, it appears that the policy arose from unconstitutional animus and a specific discriminatory intent both to blacklist Christian organizations like the Alliance Defending Freedom and to punish Yale students whose values or religious faith lead them to work there.”
Cruz instructed the school to retain all documents pertaining to the controversy, citing a potential investigation or litigation.
”In the meantime, if Yale Law School decides to alter its position and cease discriminating against religious students and organizations, please let me know, “Cruz concluded the letter to the dean.
In a statement to Campus Reform, a spokesperson for Cruz’s office said, “Yale’s policy transparently discriminates against Christian groups by prohibiting those groups from hiring individuals based on their adherence to a Christian mission. Worse, Yale wants to treat traditional Christian beliefs on marriage, sex, and gender as bigotry. Such intense hostility to students of faith and Christian groups comes from an intense anti-religious animus, and Sen. Cruz intends to investigate this matter fully.”
Tyson Langhofer, director of the Center for Academic Freedom at ADF, told Campus Reform that the proposed policy is “motivated by anti-religious bigotry and that the school is ”simply trying to bully Christians out of the marketplace of ideas.” Langhofer added, “all it does is discriminate against religious and conservative students.”
Yale Law School did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication.
[RELATED: Conservative group sues after admin unilaterally yanks status]
