Tim Walberg Asks Expert How Restrictions On Greek Life Infringe On Students' First Amendment Rights

[00:00:00]from Michigan, Mr. Walberg.

[00:00:02]Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks for putting this hearing together and to thank the the panel for being here. It's an important issue we discuss, especially since it's in America, and the King yesterday referred constantly to our freedom that come under our Constitution, our First Amendment. And it was neat to hear.

[00:00:19]I'm proud to be the sponsor of HR 5505, which is the Equal Campus Access Act of 2025, which would ensure public colleges and universities don't treat religious student organizations differently than other student organizations due to their beliefs, their practices, their speech, their leadership standards, or standards of conduct.

[00:00:42]Mr. Langhofer, um how has the the Alliance Defending Freedom supported religious organizations that have been denied official recognition by their university for enforcing their leadership requirements?

[00:00:57]Thank you, Chair.

[00:00:59]We've represented many, many religious organizations throughout the country. It's not limited to any state who are being denied on a regular basis recognition because simply because they require their leaders to adhere to a statement of faith. And and as the Supreme Court has recognized over and over again, an association a private association can't carry out its mission unless it can ensure that its leaders actually agree to that mission. That makes sense for everybody.

[00:01:27]It makes sense for religious organizations. It makes sense for secular organizations. And unfortunately, what we see all too often is public universities treating private universities differently. In fact, we just had an issue with Atlantic Cape Community College where it it was denying it and specifically said religious organizations are the only organization that cannot access student funds that every other student pays into. And it said religious organizations. And and so it's singling them out and it's putting it putting the foot on the scale and stopping religious students from being able to fully participate in college life. And I think that harms the religious students, but it also harms all students because they're not they're not exposed to the full range of of beliefs at their campus. Whether intentional or out of ignorance, that type of thing being done, and having had it done probably many, many times over the years that we didn't catch and now we're waking up to it. I appreciate your work. Thank you, Chair.

[00:02:21]Um Mr. Horwitz, um some colleges and universities have restricted the ability of students to join Greek life as you've indicated and as we've discussed before.

[00:02:34]How is this an infringement on the freedom of association rights of students?

[00:02:40]At the core, our organizations are about young men deciding what they want to belong to and being invited into that.

[00:02:47]That is an intimate connection between the student and the organization, and it's one that we should not get in the way of.

[00:02:53]We agree with higher education that the conduct of the students should be regulated and that there's a student code of conduct, but it should be equally applied to the students who belong to fraternities and sororities and students that belong to coed organizations or just general students.

[00:03:10]Specifically, I want to give you an example. At the University of Virginia, there was a Rolling Stones article that alleged very, very troubling allegations of sexual misconduct from one fraternity.

[00:03:22]Now, aside from those allegations were proven to be not true and Rolling Stones was sued, justifiably so, the other part of the story is the entire fraternity and sorority community, based on that report, was shut down for months at a time and unable to operate. Students that were appalled with the allegations, students that didn't do anything wrong, students that are in on committees to fight sexual assault on on college campus, they were still suspended in their fraternity and sorority. There is no other place. Athletes do are not treated this way. Other organizations are not treated this way. But for some reason, some institutions believe fraternities and sororities do not have the entitlement of due process as organizations or individuals. Yeah.

[00:04:10]And the freedom of association is is hindered as well at that point, so.

[00:04:14]That's right.

[00:04:15]Um thank you. Dr. McGuire, the Campus Freedom Initiative conducts student surveys on free expression.

[00:04:22]What questions are included and do you see a difference in response within any subgroup of college students?

[00:04:30]Thank you for the question. Yes, we ask questions about self-censorship. We ask questions about the political climate on campus. We ask questions about willingness to engage in intolerant behaviors like shout-downs or violence.

[00:04:41]Um all those sorts of things. And we survey enough students at particular institutions that we're able to look at subgroups within the student population, and we notice routinely that conservative students are more likely to report that they self-censor compared to liberal students on campus. And conversely, we find that conservative students are much less likely to endorse intolerant behaviors like willingness to shout down speakers compared to their liberal peers. Interesting facts. Thank you so much. Uh my time is expired. I yield back. Thank you. Now, I'd like to