A legally frivolous but potentially dangerous lawsuit filed against Catholic University by a crosstown rival has become a national cause celebre for liberal activists who want to shove their notions of college life down the private religious school’s throat. At issue is CU President John Garvey’s decision to reinstate same-sex dorms to discourage underage drinking and casual sex among the incoming freshman class, something he has every legal and moral right to do. Led by George Washington University law professor John Banzhaf, the lawsuit is a direct attack on the constitutionally protected rights of every religiously affiliated university in the country. At a recent speech at another Catholic university in Pittsburgh, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia defended CU’s decision to end a 25-year policy of co-ed dorms and urged Catholic colleges to stand up to any such attempts to undermine their religious identity. “Our educational establishment these days, while so tolerant of and even insistent on diversity in all other aspects of life, seems bent on eliminating the diversity of moral judgment … based on religious views,” Scalia told students at Duquesne University Law School.
Scalia’s point — that academic elites only accept the kind of “diversity” that meshes with their own secular worldview — apparently hit an exposed nerve. Liberals love to point out other people’s contradictions, but don’t take kindly to their own hypocrisy being pointed out to them. On Sunday, New York Times columnist and CU alumna Maureen Dowd accused Scalia of being “operatically imprudent” for “singl[ing] out and prejudg[ing] a legal proceeding which could set an important precedent.” Dowd then rambled on about abortion and the war in Iraq without identifying what “important precedent” that might be.
Banzhaf — who applauded Dowd’s “benchslapping” of Scalia — is not so shy about his motives. His absurd claim is that single-sex dorms somehow violate the District’s Human Rights Act, which prohibits housing discrimination. But there’s no discrimination when both sexes are treated exactly the same. What Banzhaf (who now admits he’s trolling for CU students to sign on as plaintiffs because he has no legal standing) really wants to do is make it illegal for Garvey or any other private university president to exercise any moral authority over his own institution. This is such a clear violation of CU’s right to freely exercise its core religious values that it will be a travesty of justice if it ever gets to Scalia’s court. But if it does, we can’t wait to read Scalia’s opinion.
