Ruth Malhotra was one of two students who sued Georgia Tech on the grounds that its Safe Space program violated religious freedom by condemning faiths that oppose homosexuality. A federal judge sided with the students last week. (File photo)
Judge strikes religious references in Ga. Tech ‘Safe Space’ program Public university cannot label some faiths as ‘anti-gay’
Georgia Tech’s Safe Space initiative, a faculty training program funded by student activity fees, cannot include information in its training materials and website that labels certain religions in a negative context because of their views on homosexuality, a federal judge ruled last week.
Ruling in a lawsuit filed by two Georgia Tech students in 2006, U.S. District Judge J. Owen Forrester said, “It is puzzling to the court that the promotion of tolerance would take the appearance of such intolerance as is contained in the religious materials distributed with the Safe Space program.”
“The handouts [included in Safe Space training] clearly take the position that churches that condemn homosexuality do so on theologically flawed grounds,” Forrester wrote April 29.
Characterizing some religions as welcoming of homosexuals while labeling others as “anti-gay” represents a “clear preference of one religion over another” and violates the First Amendment prohibition against the establishment of a religion, Forrester ruled.
Georgia Tech administrators are not liable for the viewpoints of various student groups on campus, but the Safe Space program was a “hybrid” partnership between students and administrators, and the “special set aside” it received made Tech administrators susceptible to litigation, he said.
Georgia Tech officials issued a statement saying the religious information had already been removed, but declined further comment on the lawsuit.
“The matter is moot because that material was removed a year ago and has not been used by the student organization since,” James Fetig, associate vice president for communications and marketing, said in the statement. “Georgia Tech practices are exactly the same as before the suit was filed.”
BIG WIN?
Former Tech student Ruth Malhotra — who along with Orit Sklar teamed up with the conservative Alliance Defense Fund to file the lawsuit against Safe Space — said the administration’s claims that nothing has changed at Tech “range from misleading to flat-out false.”
After an earlier ruling in August 2006, Georgia Tech officials agreed to change the wording of the school’s “Acts of Intolerance” manual, which attempted to eliminate homophobic speech in Tech’s dormitories.
“As a result of the lawsuit brought by Orit Sklar and I, Georgia Tech has repealed its speech code, altered its unconstitutional ‘speech zone’ and eliminated the unconstitutional portion of its ‘Safe Space’ program,” said Malhotra, who believes the lawsuit was unfairly depicted as part of an anti-gay campaign.
“Orit and I have no desire to be ‘intolerant’ or ‘hateful’ toward anyone. We simply have different ideas about public policy, sexual morality, religion, and culture,” said Malhotra, who received a graduate degree in December and is currently looking for work. “We should have the same right to express those views as anyone else on campus.”
Although disappointed in the ruling, the current student coordinator of Georgia Tech’s Safe Space said he feared things could turn out much worse.
“I’m very, very pleased that the Safe Space program in its entirety was not found unconstitutional,” said Scott McKee.
Had Forrester ruled that the mere existence of Safe Space represented Georgia Tech discriminating against religions that oppose homosexuality, McKee worried that it might affect similar programs at other universities throughout the country.
Sklar, one of the plaintiffs, still hopes Forrester’s ruling inspires other schools to reconsider programs similar to “Safe Space.”
“Universities across the country will be forced to review their policies and procedures to ensure they are in line with the U.S. Constitution,” said Sklar, who started her own consulting firm after graduating last year.
Supporters of Georgia Tech’s Safe Space were less convinced that Forrester’s ruling was a sweeping win for conservatives.
“It seems really cabined into the few particular statements that the court thought crossed the line and entangled the school in religious viewpoints,” said Beth Littrell, a staff attorney in the Atlanta office of the Lambda Legal Defense & Education Fund. “It was by no means a big win for anti-gay forces.”
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