While the Campus Clubs department understands the goals and visions of your organization, they are not compatible with the guidelines of what may be approved and incorporated into our department. While the promotion of reason, science and freedom of inquiry are perfectly legitimate goals, what is most in question in regards to your club's vision is the promotion of "a fulfilling life without religion and superstition". While this university is indeed technically a secular institution, secular does not denote taking an active stance in opposition to the principles and status of religious beliefs and practices. To be clear, this is not meant to say that the promotion of science and reason are illegitimate goals. But due to the need to respect and tolerate the views of others, the Campus Clubs department is unable to approve a club of this nature at this time. If you wish to adjust and rethink your club's application and vision, you may resubmit a revised proposal at any time.So because we don't base our worldviews on dogma and wish to promote that ideal we are intolerant while the Muslim, Jewish, Sikh, and Christian (including the Campus for Christ group) can? That is quite absurd. The president of the club, who got this e-mail, for the lack of a better term "flipped out," when he got this and wrote a rant in response.
Fortunately I, with his later revisions, wrote a much more diplomatic response, explaining to them what the promotion of "a fulfilling life without religion and superstition" really means and saying how not allowing a freethought group on the Wilfrid Laurier University campus it is they who are in fact being intolerant. We suggested both a revision and a meeting with them. We'll see how this turns out but I wanted to let the freethought blogging community in on it and ask those who had previous experience founding freethought groups if they had any such problems and how they can be resolved.
EDIT: To view our response to the campus clubs and a more detailed reason for the delay, you can read my follow-up post.
This story is now over, if you're curious about the progression of this story, here's the chronological breakdown of entries:
First reaction
Our response
All the blogs that sent in their support
Ensuing havoc
Working to resolve the crisis and defining our position as a club
Media attention and further steps toward resolution
More media attention
Our acceptance as a club
22 comments:
I wonder if it will take another 9 months for them to get around to doing anything about the letter you've written.
Do you want a deluge of emails sent to the Campus Clubs coordinator? Or moral support only? Or something else?
I think I already dug up the right email:
http://www.wlusu.com/brantford/home/IO/Clubs/clubapplications.htm
Just advice and moral support for now, thanks. We'd like to do this with as little "strong-arming" as possible.
Forgive my ignorance here, but is this list or current clubs accurate?
http://www.wlusu.com/brantford/home/IO/Clubs/currentclubs.htm
Or is that just for the (minor?) Brantford campus? Looking over the list quickly, I don't see any religious organizations either. What's the situation? Are there more clubs on your main (Waterloo?) campus?
I'm trying to figure out if your university has a policy of just not allowing clubs with any opinions about theism to exist at all. Your post suggests that there's a Chapter of Campus Crusade for Christ on your campus.
Sorry to be asking such dense questions--the whole situation that a campus administration might allow an explicitly Christian club to exist and simultaneously ban a club that suggests that a fulfilling life without religion and superstition might be possible is mind blowing to me.
August, that is just clubs on a satellite campus of Wilfrid Laurier University.
Here is the list of clubs on the main campus:
http://www.wlusucc.com/index.htm;jsessionid=771A952F7B452B5ACEE4BD2B9131A46B
lol thx anatoly, telling everyone i flipped out. Of course i would flip out and rant, but that's why i sent my rant to you, because i knew u'd be more clear headed. I've just had enough with these campus clubs people. 9 months of waiting for an intolerant e-mail...ugh.
I don't have any advice, but after Sandwalk mentioning you, you're like a demi-god, and I'm glad that I met you while i was in Canada.
You make a really good point in your post.
When you get touched by the blog of a god, you become a demi-god. Plain fact.
Could there be some left-over closed minds from the days when WLU was Waterloo Lutheran University?
Anatoly,
I just want to get this clear - were you denied club status by WLUSU (the student organization) or by the WLU administration? These are too very different organizations, and when people are saying that 'WLU turned down your application' it is rather ambiguous. If I am going to write a letter in support or slag an organization publicly, I want to know which one. It would be unfair to paint the entire campus or particular people in a position of power when it turns out entirely different people were involved. Could you clear this up?
Thanks.
It was the Campus Clubs office at WLU (run by students, so go figure), not the administration. I hold nothing against them.
Looking in from Sandwalk here.
Anatoly, could you clear something up, please? You mentioned Campus For Christ, but on that linked Clubs page, I can't find a listing for C4C. I do see listings for a Catholic group, a Chinese Christian group, and Laurier Christian Fellowship (which I assume is an Inter-Varsity chapter).
As to your problem: if I had to read the minds of the clubs PTB, I would guess that they choked on the juxtaposition of "religion" with "superstition". I know we atheists often like to refer to religion as superstition, but it is a negative term, and generally considered insulting. If you look at the mission statements of evangelical student clubs, I bet they don't say their purpose is "to save all the miserable sinners at WLU from the flames of hell" (even if that is part of their beliefs). Instead it's probably phrased in positive terms like "sharing Christ's love with our fellow students".
Eamon, yes, you are right about that. And it all falls back to what I said in a later post about our CC's inefficiency problems. Campus for Christ is a recognized club, talked to them myself about it as I picked up a free copy of "Case for a Creator."
That page has not just been updated in ages. So you can't quite know what other clubs have been added in recent years. Like I know for one, from looking at posters around campus, that there is also some New Age club experimenting with past life regression. It ain't pretty here.
I'd threaten to take it to the Canadian Human Rights Commission under the premise of being denied your freedom of religion.
How could they call your club intolerant?
Are the religious groups not guilty of the same thing?
Christianity after all is devoid of Islam, and Islam of Christianity. Both are devoid of Wicca, which is devoid of them as well. Most of these religions preach that you can have a good life in the absence of the others; some even specifically preach about the abolishment of the others. And all of them are implicitly or explicitly preaching anti-science rhetoric. So if they can have clubs that are effectively anti-science, why can't you have one that is universally pro-science? Why wouldn't a *university* side with the academic norm of science?
I have sent the following email to the Campus Clubs. I also sent a copy to tolyv@hotmail.com - that one bounced back.
Good luck with this!
As a Science and Engineering Professor at Queen's University, I was dismayed to read of your recent denial of official club status of the "Laurier Freethought Alliance". Some of the details have been posted on several prominent web pages internationally, and I quote these details below.
The club's stated goal is "to promote science, freedom of inquiry, skepticism, and a good life without the need for superstition or religious belief". Your stated reasons for rejecting their application are quoted in full as:
"While the Campus Clubs department understands the goals and visions of your organization, they are not compatible with the guidelines of what may be approved and incorporated into our department. While the promotion of reason, science and freedom of inquiry are perfectly legitimate goals, what is most in question in regards to your club's vision is the promotion of "a fulfilling life without religion and superstition". While this university is indeed technically a secular institution, secular does not denote taking an active stance in opposition to the principles and status of religious beliefs and practices. To be clear, this is not meant to say that the promotion of science and reason are illegitimate goals. But due to the need to respect and tolerate the views of others, the Campus Clubs department is unable to approve a club of this nature at this time. If you wish to adjust and rethink your club's application and vision, you may resubmit a revised proposal at any time."
I am astonished at this reaction, and I think you owe this group, and the general public, a fuller explanation. In this action you deny the right of this group to join the many existing campus clubs, which include, I discover from your website, several clubs with overtly religious names. In issuing this denial, you misquote the original stated goals (omitting the words "the need"), and more seriously you wilfully misread these goals as "taking an active stance in opposition to the principles and status of religious beliefs and practices".
Please understand that this action of yours has sent a chilling message to these students that their perfectly laudable and respectful goals are not only unwelcome, but are positively discriminated against by your organisation. Your actions are ill considered and I trust you will be reconsidering this decision.
Yours,
Gerhard Pratt
Dept of Geological Sciences and Geological Engineering
Queen's University
Anatoly,
First I must declare for the required that if your club was denied by Campus Clubs, then in fact it is WLUSU that you have the beef with, not WLU. Second, I am wondering what it is that you would do with Campus Club status. Are you seeking funding? Will you be running campaigns? What are your goals as an organization?
Campus Clubs does not approve every other group, nor do they approve of every other group that is associated with a religion. You must understand that every group that becomes an official Campus Club under WLUSU, results in WLUSU being responsible for any illegal or harmful actions taken by that club. Therefore, WLUSU must take care in who they approve and look at every application as a possible liability.
Do I believe that your club should be approved? Probably. The thing that you need to be aware of is that the Campus Club Co-ordinator is not out to defeat atheism or discriminate against atheists, the CC Co-ordinator simply wants to ensure that all Campus Clubs are enhancing student life, and not posing a threat to any other students.
If you are still unsatisifed with this response then I recommend that you attend the WLUSU Elections Open Forum Tuesday February 5th (Today) at 1:00 and ask the potential candidates who will run WLUSU next year, how they feel about this issue.
I further recommend that you re-evaluate you purposal, weaken your language, outline all events as inclusive, explain that funding will be used in a way that is not harmful, and resubmit it. I know it will probably be months until your club will be reviewed again, but patience is the price paid for advancement.
From one Atheist to Another,
James - Concerned Laurier Student
James wrote:
I further recommend that you re-evaluate you purposal, weaken your language, outline all events as inclusive, explain that funding will be used in a way that is not harmful, and resubmit it.
Bull. Can you imagine a Christian group having to “weaken its language” or beg to be included in anything approaching what the freethinkers have already done?
They were rejected because of the need to “tolerate” the views of others. To “tolerate” the views of others doesn’t mean you can’t criticize them, it just means you don’t prevent those views from being heard. The intolerant ones are the ones who refused the application. And it’s a casual intolerance – they just assume they can dismiss atheists any time they want. You’ll never change that bigoted attitude by weakening your language or appeasing the religious bigots in any other way.
Solidarity will be our victory. This is now wide-spread across the internet, and hopefully this dreadful blast of intolerance will be sorted out.
It is down-right disgraceful that our club has finally, after first attempting to incorporate ourselves in early April last year, to be dismissed so easily.
It is shameful that I attend Laurier.
James, I never claimed that we don't have beef with anyone but WLUSU and the Campus Clubs. I talked to the head of the Diversity Office and the person in charge of Financing (and hence the CC) last night and they explained to me clearly:
It's not an issue of discrimination but concern that they cannot give funding or club recognition to clubs that are not inclusive. Since we omitted any lines on inclusiveness they thought we are being only supportive of the non-religious people on campus. That is not so.
Today, Tyler, the president, is meeting with the head of Financing and adding a line to the application stating our full intension to be open to people of any religion if they wish to join in support of our goals.
Thank you for your concern but this thing is being highly overblown by the freethought-blogging community out there.
The WLU newspaper, the Cord, has just come out with a new article on this issue. The bloggers of the world have pushed this issue out of proportion:
1) Yes, Campus Clubs took too long to evaluate the proposal and should have been in better contact.
2) None of us have all the facts.
3) WLU has over 90 campuses, 9 of which are affiliated with a religion.
4) The only problem with the app was the one statement about stating that they want to show people that they can have a fulfilling life without religion or superstition. This is mildly, possibly indirectly but in the eyes of the Campus Clubs organization, too close to being non-accepting.
5) How can a blogger espousing freethought say stuff like:
"Like I know for one, from looking at posters around campus, that there is also some New Age club experimenting with past life regression. It ain't pretty here."
Yeah, way to be inclusive.
Though Anatoly, good job on the new posts and clarifications.
http://www.cordweekly.com/cordweekly/myweb.php?hls=10034&news_id=1443
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