The College Fix

Rollins College in central Florida is the latest institution of higher learning in the U.S. to wage war on student religious groups. College officials determined that Christian groups on campus were in violation of the school’s “non-discrimination policy.”

All Christian student groups who refuse to allow non-Christian leaders will cease to receive university funds, according to the school’s new interpretation of its “non-discrimination policy.” Because, of course, when a faith-based group wants its leaders to actually abide by its faith and beliefs–THAT’S DISCRIMINATION!!!!

Give me a break.

Now Rollins has reportedly ruled that students cannot even gather in their own dorms for a simple Bible study:

Four students affiliated with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship were holding an informal Bible study in the common area of a dorm suite. Midway through the study, a resident hall assistant entered the room and asked the student leading the study to step outside.

“He was told they were no longer allowed inside the dorm – even with the express consent of the students to do Bible studies,” said Greg Jao, InterVarsity’s national field director. “They said it was because InterVarsity was no longer a registered student group on campus.”

A Rollins spokesperson told Fox News that the rule was simply a miscommunication.

“No group is allowed to hold meetings in the common space of residence halls,” the spokesperson said. “A fraternity was recently in violation of this as well, and they were asked to meet elsewhere – so it was not just InterVarsity.”

Let’s get this straight because the logic employed by Rollins College in this story is very complicated.

1) Four students gather–not to hold an official meeting for their campus religious group–but rather in an informal setting to read the Bible together, and that’s suddenly a “group” holding “meetings?”

2) Students are told to leave the building because the religious group they happen to have been affiliated with is no longer recognized on campus.

3) Campus officials, when pressed by the news media, insist that the fact these four students were kicked out has nothing to do with the religious nature of the gathering, even though that’s what the students were told by the resident hall assistant.

4) The official says the reason the students were given for being kicked out was wrong, but that it is was right, nevertheless, for them to have been kicked out (for an entirely different reason).

Conclusion: If those four students had gathered instead to talk about the weather, or the Lakers, or to share celebrity gossip, that would have been OK–but talking about the Bible made the meeting not OK.

But it still has NOTHING to do with the students’ religion, they tell us.

Makes perfect sense, right?

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