TO THE EDITOR:
I agree that UNC’s non-discrimination policy should be changed, but only because it is inconsistent.
The current policy states that a student group can limit its membership to students based on their “commitment to a set of beliefs” as long as they don’t discriminate based on a student’s beliefs. If you can explain this, please do.
The Daily Tar Heel’s editorial Tuesday presents a weak argument for stifling student rights to speech and association. The editorial assumes — without support — that disagreeing with homosexuality is hate, and that individual rights trump association rights. It also assumes that denying membership to a group forces excluded students to change their thinking and that the only way to provide diversity on campus is to force diversity within student groups, thus destroying any meaningful diversity between groups.
The whole purpose of student groups is for students to gather around a unifying set of ideas and goals. If groups are forced to admit students who disagree with those ideas and goals, this destroys the purpose of having a group in the first place. If UNC and its students are truly committed to diversity, first amendment protections of speech and association and robust dialogue on today’s most important issues, then it must protect student groups that take unpopular stances on controversial issues. As long as an excluded student can create their own group, other groups must have the right to restrict leadership to students who at least agree with the group’s core beliefs.
Andrew Brown
Graduate Student
School of Law
