First Amendment legal precedents prohibit viewpoint discrimination by public universities against student organizations, such as defunding a satirical student newspaper for mocking safe spaces. Most private colleges make similar contractual promises.

The rejection of Christian and Republican clubs at public and private schools on each coast, by administrators and student government leaders, respectively, has sparked litigation and saber-rattling by legal groups that defend free expression in higher education.

Campus Bible Fellowship sued the State University of New York's Broome Community College for denying recognition because "a personal relationship with Jesus Christ" is a leadership requirement, "preventing it from reserving campus space and accessing financial resources," the complaint says.

The college claims the leadership requirement violates its antidiscrimination rules, but its recognition conditions violate three clauses of the First Amendment – free exercise of religion, speech and assembly, according to the lawsuit, filed by Alliance Defending Freedom.

"Forcing CBF to accept leaders who don’t share their religious beliefs fundamentally alters their religious expression" by "seeking to control a fundamental aspect of CBF’s governance, doctrine, and faith," ADF senior counsel Tyson Langhofer said.

The complaint conspicuously omits the 2010 Supreme Court precedent Martinez, which upheld an indistinguishable public law school "all-comers" policy against a challenge by the Christian Legal Society, but it alleges SUNY Broome isn't consistently applying its "open access" policy because the college recognizes groups that apparently exclude the opposite sex.

It's the second recent lawsuit by a Christian ministry against SUNY Broome for the policy, with InterVarsity suing last month, represented by religious liberty law firm Becket. The policy is like "telling a Yankees fan club that it has to let a Red Sox fan be president," Becket counsel Colten Stanberry said.

A spokesperson for SUNY Broome told Just the News it cannot comment on pending litigation. ADF didn't respond when asked why it left out the Martinez precedent.

The Whitman Republican Club sicced the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression on the Washington private college after the student Senate subjected its founder to an hour-long "interrogation" about President Trump, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Title IX, then voted 25-0 to deny recognition, which comes with funding and campus resources.

The Senate violated its own constitution and bylaws, which prohibit discrimination by "political beliefs" and specifically apply that protection to student groups, club Chairman David Dunbabin told Seattle Red 770 AM. He claimed Whitman President Sarah Bolton "asked me directly to start it, because I mentioned that I work with the local GOP."

FIRE's legal warning letter quotes Whitman's promise in the student handbook that every student has a right to "freedom of speech, expression, and association," which "morally and legally" binds the college to "First Amendment jurisprudence."

A FIRE spokesperson told Just the News that Whitman hasn't responded to the letter, which has a Sept. 14 deadline, and that the Republican club's plans so far are only to reapply in the fall. 

Neither the college nor student government answered queries, including what role, if any, Bolton played in the club's formation. 

It's not the first time a college president allegedly greenlit the formation of a conservative group, only to turn against it. California's Kern Community College District paid millions of dollars to conservative faculty over the past two years to settle litigation stemming from alleged retaliation for their activities in a Bakersfield College right-leaning think tank.

"The Republican Club could change its name to 'MAGA Trumpers who MAGA all day and MAGA all night,' and the university should still provide viewpoint neutral access to recognition and resources," said New York Times columnist and former FIRE President David French, a vocal critic of the Trump administration and Make America Great Again movement.

Ban on groups that 'unduly burden or marginalize' other students

As the university ministry of Ohio-based Baptist Mid-Missions Global Ministries, CBF's Broome chapter has a trained chaplain, shares "the gospel of Jesus Christ as set forth in the Holy Bible through all activities" and "welcomes all students to participate in its general membership, activities, and events," reserving only leadership for Christians, the suit says.

But the college gave it a "coercive and unconstitutional choice," to preserve its "Christian character" or to give it up in exchange for "special access to funding," meeting and event space, club fairs, "printing resources" and advertising the club and its events, including the student club page on SUNY Broome's website.

Club President Jacob Seachrist, a named plaintiff, is paying a mandatory $215 student activity fee each semester "pursuant to policies that infringe on his and CBF’s constitutional rights," according to the complaint. Recognized student clubs are eligible for up to $500 a year from student activity fees.

Broome's CBF received recognition continuously from 1996 until 2025, when Director of Student Activities Nick Kocienewski refused renewal based on 10 sections of its constitution that require voting members and officers "to adhere to CBF’s statement of faith, act as spiritual leaders, and/or maintain a personal relationship with Jesus Christ," the suit says.

It remained on "inactive" status the entirety of the 2025-2026 school year, ineligible for any benefits, and Kocienewski again rejected the constitution when new president Seachrist submitted a revised version this spring.

CBF is challenging the constitutionality of the open-access rule, the nondiscrimination statement student clubs must follow and what it calls the "college discretion rule," which gives Kocienewski and the student government discretion to deny recognition to groups with an "inappropriate focus" or that would "unduly burden or marginalize" other students.

The latter rule "does not define or contain any comprehensive guidelines, standards, or criteria that limit the discretion" of officials or even require them to "approve or deny an application within a certain time period," leaving applicants in perpetual limbo.

The suit identifies three recognized clubs that appear to reserve leadership or membership for either men or women: Love You Like a Sister, Elevate Her, and Men of Excellence, which is also limited to "men of color." This also shows preference for secular activities, meaning the student club policies are not "neutral or generally applicable."

Immigrant-heavy conservative group grilled about ICE event

FIRE's warning letter to Whitman cites the March 8 Senate minutes, a part of which the free speech group posted publicly. (It was not involved until Aug. 31, seeking "viewpoint-neutral criteria" to evaluate the Republican Club for its reapplication this fall.)

Before the recognition vote, senators asked club reps how they would oppose the national party's platform on "deport[ing] pro-Hamas radicals" and protect students from "pro-ICE" guest speakers. They asked what "language about trans and LGBTQ individuals has to do" with party principles and repeatedly accused the club of "contradictions." 

Senators' questions referred to the club's ICE event that week and a letter in the school paper about a state ballot measure to limit girls' sports to females, Seattle Red 770 AM said. Dunbabin said he asked how the Senate could recognize progressive clubs for Planned Parenthood, Generation Action and the Climate Justice Coalition but not his.

More than one senator recommended removing "Republican" from the name. 

"You can name yourselves whatever you want, but the language of your constitution is in direct contrast to our own constitution," the final comment by a senator says. "I would suggest that you remove the title and make a debate club."

The minutes show club reps' frustration with the questions and accusations.

"Why is it on us to prove we are not harmful? All of us have been doxed on YikYak," a campus-specific anonymous social network, one response is paraphrased. (Dunbabin said his room has been doxxed and his window "spit at multiple times from having [an] Israeli flag.")

"How are we excluding minority groups when we are ourselves a minority group on campus?" another club response says. 

Dunbabin said "roughly" half the club's board are immigrants, as reflected by a club photo, and have been treated worse than him. Whitman's student body is overwhelmingly white and, according to a survey, liberal.