Two Christian student groups have filed a federal lawsuit against Virginia State University after the university sought to put all campus religious organizations under the control of a university-selected “Campus Minister”—but then exempted non-Christian student religious groups from the new protocol.
Two campus Christian organizations were directly affected by VSU’s sudden grab at control of its faith-based organizations— Women of Victory and Bethel Campus Fellowship. The campus chapters are each linked to national organizations of the same name.
Both national student organizations have unobjectionable aims and objectives. Women of Victory Ministries states on its website that it is dedicated to “encouraging and equipping college women to fulfill their God-given calling through the transforming power of Jesus Christ.”
The Bethel Campus Fellowship describes itself as “an interdenominational, politically neutral organization established to proclaim the Lordship of Jesus Christ on high school and college campuses.” The organization’s stated mission is “Leading Students to Christ and preparing them to become reliable men and women that God can entrust with His word for the next generation.”
Meanwhile, VSU’s chapter of the Hamas-funded Muslim Students Association brought a representative from the Nation of Islam’s Minister Louis Farrakhan to campus last February. Farrakhan is widely known as a vicious racist and antisemite. “The white man is the devil, but the Jew is the one who orchestrates the white man’s actions against the black man in America,” he has stated. Despite aligning itself with Farrakhan’s racist organization, the Muslim Students Association at VSU was not subject to the same dictatorial religious controls as its Christian counterparts.
The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a legal organization dedicated to defending religious freedom that is acting on behalf of the two Christian student groups, explained how the university’s discriminatory tactics played out.
“In August, VSU’s Campus Ministries office adopted a new policy, informing student leaders that ‘student-led ministries’ could no longer hold registered student organization status or affiliate with their national organizations,” ADF explains. “Instead, faith-based groups like Women of Victory and Bethel Campus Fellowship would be absorbed into VSU’s Campus Ministries, subject to the sole authority of the University’s Campus Minister, Thomas Wynn, and a board of advisors comprised of faculty members and university employees.”
The details of this takeover are even more disturbing. “Under the university’s new policy, Wynn is granted control of all student-led ministries, with complete discretion to approve or reject requests for religious meetings, events, guest speakers, and all other religious activities on campus,” the ADF explained in a press release. What’s more, “The Muslim Students Association and the VSU Community Faith Alliance—the only non-Christian religious organizations at VSU—are explicitly exempted from the policy.”
Student leaders from the two Christian groups attempted to dispute the policy and questioned official “Campus Minister” Wynn on why the university’s new policy was only directed at Christian student organizations. “Because you are all faith-based,” Wynn replied, “… because you purport Jesus Christ and faith.”
In an egregiously dictatorial move, Wynn announced the elimination of the shuttle service that students would take to attend a local church on Sunday mornings, explaining that this change was made because “the school wants to crack down on transportation to outside churches.”
“VSU is brazenly singling out Christian clubs and treating them worse than student groups of other faiths. The Constitution prohibits such blatant discrimination,” said ADF Senior Counsel Tyson Langhofer. “The First Amendment clearly establishes the right of all student organizations to associate around shared beliefs. The students of Women of Victory and Bethel Campus Fellowship are right to stand up to university officials and hold them accountable for violating their fundamental rights.”
The totalitarian ethos of Virginia State’s approach to Christianity has already been felt on campus. According to the ADF, “university officials have used it to prohibit Christian students from gathering—even for non-religious purposes, such as an informal pajama party in a residence hall.”
“Women of Victory has had a powerful and loving presence at VSU since I started the ministry as a sophomore nearly nine years ago,” commented Jneva Norfleet, Founder and Executive Director of Women of Victory Ministries. “It is disheartening that VSU administrators have chosen to strip our chapter of its registered student organization status, rights, and benefits because of the students’ religious beliefs. Women of Victory Ministries advocates for every student’s right to freely express their faith on campus.”
It is notable that Virginia State is recognized as a Historically Black College and University (HBCU) that is governed by a black President, Dr. Makola M. Abdullah. It is worth asking if the university’s unconstitutional attempt to control Chistian students’ religious practices also betrays a racist paternalism towards the mostly African-American students who choose to matriculate there, adding another injustice to the obvious religious discrimination at hand. Regardless of the internal reasoning, Virginia State’s illegal and unconstitutional restrictions on its Christian student organizations demonstrate hypocrisy of the highest order. The federal courts should strike down the university’s new policy forthwith.