Months after the evangelical Christian student group Tufts Christian Fellowship (TCF) declined to apply for exemption from the university's nondiscrimination policy under a new policy created by the Committee on Student Life (CSL) in December, the CSL decision remains in place despite widespread student objection, and student leaders and activists in the Coalition Against Religious Exclusion (CARE) have vowed to continue to oppose it even as another student religious group has begun the process of applying to use the policy.
We're still hoping for a complete and full repeal," rising junior Kumar Ramanathan, a member of CARE, said. "There is widespread discontent on campus ... and we will continue to express it."
CARE member Duncan MacLaury, a graduating senior, said the policy is antithetical to Tufts' values.
"This policy institutionalizes discrimination, creating a legal loophole [that] effectively nullifies the important protections of the 'all comers' nondiscrimination policy when applied to student religious groups," he said.
After the Tufts Community Union (TCU) Judiciary derecognized TCF in the fall over clauses in its constitution requiring group leaders to affirm their belief in a specific list of Evangelical tenets approved by TCF's parent organization, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA, the CSL - composed of a dozen students and faculty members - developed a rule for "justified departure," allowing religious groups to sidestep nondiscrimination requirements on religious grounds if their constitutions violate the TCU constitution's nondiscrimination clause. The new policy shifted the responsibility of judging religious groups' requirements for its leaders onto the Chaplaincy, a university department consisting of the chaplains for the four represented religious sects and currently headed by interim University Chaplain Patricia Budd Kepler.
Jordan Dashow, a rising senior who has been active in CARE and was elected as a student representative on next year's CSL, said that while this year's committee had the student body's interests in mind when it created the "justified departure" policy, reaction has shown it to be unpopular with much of the student body.
"I think it's important to recognize that when they created this policy they weren't doing this with ill intent," he said. "[But] the majority of students overwhelmingly does not support this policy ... I think, as a student representative, it's important that I convey that message."
In his role on the CSL, Dashow said, he will advocate for the return to an "all comers" approach for religious groups.
"[It would] create an atmosphere that appreciates students' identities but also allows religious groups to have the values of their community," he said.
Philip Starks, an associate professor of biology who serves as faculty co-chair of the CSL, said the body will consider any suggestions to amend the rule.
"A central role of the CSL is to help create policy that is fair to all students," Starks told the Daily in an email. "Because no policy is perfect, the CSL - from the minute the university policy on [student religious groups] was released - has been willing to hear approaches that can improve the policy."
In March, TCF - which no longer exists under that name and will return to the Hill in the fall solely as the Tufts chapter of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA - announced it would not request exemption or re-apply for Judiciary recognition. TCF cited the CSL policy's failure to make a distinction between sexual orientation and sexual expression as its reason for not employing "justifiable departure" to apply for re-recognition - a focal point for those protesting the policy, who are concerned that it would allow for discrimination against LGBT students.
"Our desire for every leader is to submit their sexual expression to the will of God," Ezichi Ednah Nwafor, one of six members of TCF's leadership board, told the Daily in March. "We wouldn't be able to really make that distinction if we put together expression and orientation under one category."
Last month, the policy was put to its first practical test: The Tufts chapter of the Seventh-day Adventist organization Campus HOPE came forward to request that the Chaplaincy grant it exemption from the nondiscrimination policy, allowing it to request Judiciary recognition while keeping clauses in its constitution that would have previously kept it from being funded.
In a statement last week, the Chaplaincy - headed by Kepler - told the Daily that Campus HOPE's proposed constitution contained a clause that asked that their leaders be Adventists.
"They did not ask for any exemptions regarding race, color, national or ethnic origin, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity and expression, including a transgender identity, genetics, veteran status or any other protected status," the statement said.
The Chaplaincy approved the proposal and forwarded it to the Judiciary, which found that Campus HOPE's constitution and Kepler's approval of the exemption did not fulfill the Judiciary's requirements for transparency.
"Fortunately for the Judiciary, it's kind of clear-cut," Judiciary re-recognition chair Jonathan Jacques, a rising senior, said. "The only thing we have to decide is whether the constitution is transparent or not. We want ... the constitution to say exactly who can and cannot be a leader of the group - if women can't be a leader of the group, you have to say a woman can't be a leader in the group."
The Chaplaincy-approved constitution Campus HOPE submitted to the Judiciary last month did not meet its standards of transparency or specificity, outgoing Judiciary chair Adam Sax said.
"[The Chaplaincy] approved a constitution that did not follow any of the protocols of the CSL decision," Sax, who graduates today, said. "The CSL decision requires ... if there is to be an exemption, that there be doctrinal evidence. There was no doctrinal evidence. I sent it back to them and said, 'I'm not going to bring this ... to anyone.'"
Campus HOPE will enter the summer in a state of limbo - its recognition is currently pending with the Judiciary as the body waits for further clarification on what it means, in exact terms, to limit leadership to Seventh-day Adventists. While its recognition is pending - the Judiciary has set an Oct. 1 deadline for its application to be resolved - the group will be allowed to continue to meet and use the Tufts name but will not have access to Senate funding or full recognition until it can provide the Judiciary with a satisfactorily transparent constitution.
"We anticipate that the discussion of the group's recognition will resume at the start of the fall semester," the Chaplaincy said in its statement to the Daily.
However, Kepler will not be present to see Campus HOPE and the Judiciary grapple with the continuing recognition process. On July 1, Rev. Gregory McGonigle will leave his post as the director of Oberlin College's Office of Religious and Spiritual Life to replace Kepler as Tufts' chaplain. How McGonigle views the CSL policy and interprets Campus HOPE's claims to a doctrinal reason, Jacques said, will be crucial to the future of the policy.
"I have no idea exactly what his stance is going to be, so that's the biggest variable in everything," he said. "He might reject [Campus HOPE's departure from the nondiscrimination policy], because he has the power to do so. He, being the chaplain, can say no. We're going to have to work with him."
McGonigle declined to comment on what his approach will be until he assumes the post in July.
After the Senate passed a resolution calling on the faculty and University President Anthony Monaco to call for the policy's repeal and CARE members made similar demands, it became apparent that no body or university faculty member has the official ability to force a reversal of the decision. Members of the Arts, Sciences and Engineering Faculty Executive Committee declined to vote on whether to strike down the policy or not because of a lack of an administrative precedent to do so, committee co-chair Steven Hirsch told the Daily in March.
"There's lots of different precedents and a lot of contradictory information," Ramanathan said. "It's really still quite unclear what the recourse is."
In an interview last month, Monaco said that, while the faculty cannot vote to repeal the policy, there is a possibility it will come to the table again.
"They can't overturn the CSL decision, but they can ask the CSL to reconsider or to go away and rethink it and then come back. That's one outcome," Monaco said.
In the interview, held before Campus HOPE sought out Chaplaincy permission for "justified departure," Monaco added that the first group to apply would serve as a test for the policy's effectiveness.
"I think ... working with a group coming through to use the exception will be a learning experience, and that'll help also understand how this policy works. I'm really waiting to see how the process goes through," he said. "I think this is not something that an individual should decide
