God and the Golden State

Rounding off a year where the “intelligent design” debate has kept the church-state distinction in education at the forefront of national attention, the University of California (UC) has recently been sued for violating the free speech of evangelical Christians. The suit—which is scheduled to hit the the Federal District Court of Los Angeles on Dec. 12—has been filed by six students at Calvary Chapel Christian School and by the Association of Christian Schools International (ACSI) who claim UC is guilty of “viewpoint discrimination.”

The controversy concerns the UC’s “a-g” subject area requirements, the curricular prerequisites for applying to any of the UC schools. The UC has repeatedly refused to give credit for a small number of Calvary courses including “Christianity’s Influence in American History,” “Christianity and Morality in American Literature,” and a number of the school’s science courses. Calvary and the ACSI charge that refusing to count these course amounts to penalizing students for taking Christian-themed classes. Ultimately, they worry that the UC’s restrictions will chill speech at private Christian schools, forcing them to secularize in order to provide an “acceptable” education.

There can be no question that maintaining free speech in the academy is essential to promoting the open discourse that is fundamental to American society. But in this case, the UC is not violating anyone’s rights.

In order for a university to function as a locus of higher learning, it must be able to set minimal standards for its students’ academic preparation. Since the opportunity to attend a UC is not a right but conditional upon an applicant’s willingness to meet these objective standards, claims of discrimination suggest either that the standards themselves are biased, or that they are being enforced inconsistently.

The UC schools are run by the California Board of Regents, but the standards for a-g subject areas are set by the Board of Admissions and Relations With Schools (BARWS), a committee of the UC Faculty Senate. The Undergraduate Admissions Office then reviews course textbooks and syllabi against the stated criteria. Courses that meet the BARWS standards are approved for credit, and a list of courses that meet the UC standards is sent to each school and added to an online searchable database.

To argue that the BARWS standards violate free speech, Calvary and the ACSI will need to prove that admissions standards were not content-neutral; in other words, that they were targeted to restrict religious speech specifically. It is important to note that there is no such things as a completely neutral standard—every decision to include or exclude involves some degree of value judgement—but the assumption behind content-neutrality is that the decision to exclude is not based on the specific content of the speech in question but a generally compelling government interest.

In this case, as the a-g guide states, that interest includes the UC’s ability to ensure applicants ”can participate fully in the first year program” and “have attained the necessary preparation for courses.” These are hardly statements of anti-religious sentiment.

Exploring the guide more thoroughly, it is clear that each subject area has requirements that have been designed to uphold these ideals. The lab sciences, for example, must “cover the core concepts in one of the fundamental disciplines of biology, chemistry, or physics.” The concern with Calvary’s biology class was the use of Bob Jones University’s “Biology for Christian Schools,” which specifically states: “The people who have prepared this book have tried consistently to put the Word of God first and science second.” With the important place the Darwinian theory of evolution plays in academic discussions of genetics, ecology, and neurology (to name just a few biology-heavy fields), it is unsurprising a university would want their incoming class well-versed in its tenets and applications. UC told Calvary that it was welcome to keep the Bob Jones book as a secondary text, but that in order for the students to receive a-g credit, the course must use a primary text that reflects “knowledge generally accepted in the scientific and educational communities and with which a student at the university level should be conversant.”

Since the BARWS standards are clearly content-neutral, the only possible argument left is that the standards are being imposed in an unusually harsh manner against Christian courses. Calvary and the ACSI have made this argument as well, pointing to classes on Buddhism and Judaism that have been accepted for credit.

Again, it is important to consider why the Calvary courses have been turned down. Courses are welcome to teach U.S. history from a particular perspective—women’s history, for example, is mentioned as a viable option—provided the course still includes the “full span of U.S. history or at least the key events in U.S. history. The Calvary course on Christianity in American history does not cover the stipulated material. Similarly, the rejected English course is taught entirely from a Christian anthology, which goes against the requirement that students read assigned works in their entirety.

It is clear that the UC’s refusal to accept these courses is not discrimination of any kind. The UC is merely requiring Calvary abide by the same standards as other high schools. Other Christian schools in California have accommodated the UC by teaching from dual textbooks with little to no hassle. There’s no reason Calvary couldn’t do the same. With 43 of their courses already approved for credit, minimal changes to the few that are being contested would allow the school to teach Christian perspectives and values while still providing their students with the appropriate preparation for the further education.