The University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire has forbidden RAs (students who work as residential assistants) from leading Bible-study groups in their dorms. Administrators claim they are compelled to forbid RAs from engaging in this activity because RAs who lead such groups risk seeming "unapproachable" to the students entrusted to their care.

Last summer, RAs who had been leading Bible study groups in their dorms--not as official dorm activities, but privately, on their own time, in their own rooms--received a letter from Associate Director for Housing and Residence Life Deborah Newman forbidding them to continue and threatening them with disciplinary action if they did. When one RA questioned the edict, Newman informed him that "as an RA you need to be available to your residents both in reality and from their perspective." The suggestion is not only that students who work as RAs don't have the same First Amendment rights that other students have, but also that religious RAs are off in some nether world, and that leading religious study groups violates in some manner their obligation to live in "reality" and to share their residents' presumably godless "perspective" on life. Newman has also forbidden RAs to lead Koran- and Torah-based study groups.

FIRE is defending the Eau Claire RAs. The University is ignoring FIRE. But perhaps that will change now that FIRE has gone public.

UPDATE 11/04: The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel has more.

Wow. I've worked in residence life for almost 14 years in positions ranging from RA to director of residence life. I've worked at four public schools and one private. I'm fairly conservative politically, which is a bit unusual for this field, but I tend to ignore the occasional PC nonsense and focus on the job at hand.

I am amazed that 1) the school would do something like this in the first place, and 2)that none of their professional staff saw anything wrong with it.

I know that RAs are held to a different standard than other students, due to their role in the hall. I know that we (housing professionals) may hold them accountable for actions that take place off campus or not in relation to their work (ie: taking an underage resident out drinking). I could not in my wildest imagination think that a department would keep students from holding religiously based study groups in their own dorm rooms.

If this is the case, I suppose that RAs will not be allowed to attend religious services off campus, have religious materials in their rooms, or pray in their rooms. Ridiculous extremes, but logical given the rationale offered.

Go get 'em, FIRE!

I agree that the ban is totally wrong.

Seeing it here did give make me wonder about a few things. Maybe just one thing. I remember the call for a Cult Studies panel a while back; everyone was in an uproar about it and most thought it shouldn't happen on a public campus.

How, exactly, is that different from what these RA's are doing? In other words, why couldn't a conference panel be something that holds a controversial view? (I don't think the bible study group is controversial) The panel was a call for willing participants; it was looking for people with similar ideas and viewpoints, just as the RA's bible study. The conference was on university property, but that property is "rented" through registration fees (and would most likely be vacant anyway), just like the RA's dorm room. Anyone threatened/disturbed by the conference or the panel need not attend--just like the bible study.

Both should be allowed. It's just funny to see that one was condemned and the other becomes a case for free expression.

I read "as an RA you need to be available to your residents both in reality and from their perspective" as saying that it's not enough for the RAs actually to be available (available in reality), but to also to be perceived as being approachable (available from their perspective). It's wrong-headed, but it's not quite a ludicrous as 'leading religious study groups violates in some manner their obligation to live in "reality."'

Joshua..but the implication is that "available from their perspective" means that you must share their religious convictions (or lack of same)--or at least not publicly assert any religious convictions that might contradict theirs.

A human being is a compex, multidimensional entity, and there are many personality aspects that affect "availability" in an emotional sense. It might well matter more whether you have the same hobbies, or the same career interests, or whether you fall into a similar position on the introversion/extroversion axis. The idea that the most important things about an individual are defined by the dimensions that are of interest to liberal academics at any given moment (race, sex, class, and now I guess religion) is pretty superficial.

Playing the devil's advocate here:

I suppose the reaction is an ill-thought response to the extreme forms of religion that are all the rage these days. An RA that fervently believed that the Earth was 6000 years old certainly does live in a different reality than most people. Perhaps there is something to the "unapproachable" thing: a student with a relationship issue may not want to be told "Jesus Saves-No sex before marriage-God hates fags." Or maybe the concern is that the RA will feel compelled to preach the good word, and most residents will feel compelled to avoid that RA like the plague.

It's unfair and wrong, but it happens. People often get judged by the worst members of their group (or associated groups); religious extremists of all flavors have the loudest voices. This particular RA wanted a bible study group--the administration saw religious strawmen that would interfere with the residents' life. Like I said, It's unfair--It really sucks, but what bureaucracy ever uses common sense?

If an RA is leading a Bible study on his or her own time and it's not affecting their ability to do their job, the department is out of line to forbid them from doing it.

If it is affecting an RA's ability to do their job or is otherwise disruptive (ie: door to door proselyzing), THEN it becomes actionable.

The reason we have live-in hall directors is to make sure that the RA staff is being accessible and available to all their residents. The standard of "available from their perspective" is not reasonable ... if I'm Catholic, does that mean that my RA is "not available" if he's Muslim or atheist? If I'm Jewish, does that mean my RA is "not available" if he's Protestant or Hindu?

Jason, if you're going to play devil's advocate, you have to tweak the variables a bit more. Is an RA considered "unapproachable" if she wears a hijab? A turban? A star of David? A Ralph Nader t-shirt? If he's a vegetarian or a meat-eater? English major or pre-med? To some people, inevitably. An RA who doesn't read the Bible may not seem accessible to his Christian advisees. Whether any of that matters is, I suppose, largely governed by whether an RA is supposed to be merely a representative of the administration and an enforcer of its policy, a hastily-trained conflict resolution specialist, or some sort of two-bit therapist.




Regardless, David Foster is right: there are innumerable variables that determine how "accessible" someone will seem to any given person. One thing that's true, though, is that most students would probably prefer to talk to an RA who's being himself rather than one who is obviously acting false simply to conform to a set of prejudiced assumptions about what constitutes accessibility.

Jeff--I agree with you and I also agree with most of what David had to say. I think what happened to that RA was wrong, wrong, wrong.

While it's certain that there are many things that may make some people less approachable, it's also true that extremism in any belief will decrease one's approachability. My only point is that in our world of increasingly polarized viewpoints people often make unfounded assumptions based upon stereotypes. This seems like the case here. It certainly doesn't excuse the Housing Director's actions, but I think it's a possible explanation.

I was also suggesting that this is typical bureaucratic overkill--what happens when common sense is not allowed. A vegetarian group that meets to swap recipes is okay--a group that tosses buckets of blood on "carnivores" should be stopped.

The importance of the RA's psychological availability is of interest to me. I sent my kid off to college this year to finish growing up. I don't think she needs a surrogate mommy in the dorm.

I'm thinking about the RA is Tom Wolfe's latest novel..

I guess what continues to perplex me, and the point I repeat over and over again when confronted with such absurdities, is how it is even remotely possible that such policies actually get adopted, i.e., how it is that no one appears to see any problem with it. One would expect, at the absolute least, for the University's legal counsel to be screaming at the top of their lungs to their client words to effect of "this is going to get us royally fucked."

Dave, most rules and policies are never sent to university counsel for review unless it involves a contract, at least at the schools I work at. In the department I currently work at, I got the housing contract and the disciplinary rules approved by general counsel.

Day to day decisions, though, are usually made at the lowest level and not sent up for review. While that's an efficient way of doing things, something like this likely would have gotten the lawyers' attention had they seen it.

Then again, I worked at one school that refused to recognize or fund any religiously based student group, and the lawyers were of the opinion it was a defensible position (though that was 10 years ago and has hopefully changed). Sometimes, even review by legal counsel can't keep a dumb thing from happening.

Well, that doesn't really surprise me, but I think my larger point is that I find it bizarre that this sort of thing wouldn't set off all sorts of alarm bells and red flags in lots of people's minds. I may be an attorney myself, but should you really have to be to see that there MIGHT be First Amendment problems with this? Not to know the ins and outs of the law, but just to know that there could BE a problem with the policy?

"I worked at one school that refused to recognize or fund any religiously based student group, and the lawyers were of the opinion it was a defensible position"

Public school or private school? And defensible in the sense that you could potentially win the lawsuit this would inevitably attract, or defensible in the sense that it wouldn't create any problems at all? If the latter, that strikes me as so idiotic that it could be grounds for a malpractice suit against the lawyer who provided such advice.

Somehow this takes me back to my old dorm days when we had to ask the RA for toilet paper and other basics for the suites' bathrooms. I can imagine the sort of RA that's in these nitwits' nightmares...

Apologies to Ian McKellan (one of the only two redeeming parts of Cold Comfort Farm):

"TOILET PAPER?!?! THERE'LL BE NO TOILET PAPER IN HELL!"

But, especially in a public institution, might there not also be a problem with establishing religion? There are various limitations on free speech, including a limitation on faculty speech that might thwart the purposes of the state-supported institution. There is also the prohibition against establishment, i.e., state support, of religion, which some might well see as a limitation on free speech (and is perhaps the case here).

If I, as a state supported school, own a dorm, and I pay (or forgive fees) an RA to supervise the dorm, to what extent am I supporting religious activity if I say it's OK for an RA to hold a Bible (or Koran or Torah) session in his or her room? To what extent am I contributing to some confusion over this, at best? FIRE thinks it's a contradiction to say it's OK for an RA to sponsor The Vagina Monologues as an official dorm activity, but TVM is not a religious text -- a key difference that FIRE seems to miss, whatever the merits of the play.

If I'm a member of the RA's study group, and I commit some sort of no-no that might otherwise bring the official notice of the disciplinary deans via the RA, but the RA chooses to overlook it because I'm in the group, is this a problem?

It doesn't appear that if the RA goes over to the local church and teaches Sunday school or leads a Wednesday night prayer group this is a problem. The problem appears to be, and appropriately in my mind, the use of the state facility to conduct a religious exercise. I think the prohibition is correct, but the explanations being given are lame.

Bible study groups are nice, of course, but my experience is that if you, say, have studied Greek and can offer some constructive comment on why wording is a certain way, the other group members will not appreciate it. They will instead insist that God has told them it's otherwise. I don't feel, frankly, that it's a great loss that such groups be asked to find another venue than an RA's dorm room.

John...actually, I think it's the *prohibition* of the groups that clearly represents an unconstitutional establishment of religion.

I bet if an RA wanted to conduct a group focused on a mystical interpretation of environmentalism ("Gaia" and all that), the university would have no problem with it.

David said: Joshua..but the implication is that "available from their perspective" means that you must share their religious convictions (or lack of same)--or at least not publicly assert any religious convictions that might contradict theirs.

Well, yeah, that's what makes it wrong-headed.

We might be into the question of what constitutes religion, then. Frequently audiences at public events are urged toward "moments of silence" or "meditation" or whatever rather than "prayer", though you could certainly argue that any of these is a religious expression. There's also a question of what constitutes a "religious" threshold. If a Sikh RA wished to conduct a seminar in his or her room on that religion for those who might be interested, there might not be enough of what William James would call a "living option" to make it a "religious" event. But this would vary. James himself felt it wasn't a "living option" to believe in the Mahdi, but times have changed, and people might perceive a threat from an apocalyptic Islamic proselytizer. So it's possible that an RA who advocated Wiccan might fall below the threshold of being something worth troubling about, or the RA might be more easily removed for otherwise bizarre behavior.

It seems to me, by the way, that the university would have no problem with individual students who had no official role as university employees or representatives having informal prayer groups in their own rooms. The RA could presumably attend as just another interested member. The problem appears to be with RAs in their roles as RAs holding exercises deemed to be sufficiently religious as to raise a potential problem, and there I think the university is correct, given the law.

"Bible study groups are nice, of course, but my experience is that if you, say, have studied Greek and can offer some constructive comment on why wording is a certain way, the other group members will not appreciate it. They will instead insist that God has told them it's otherwise."

John, you have had actual experience with Bible study groups? I've been a member of several groups over several decades and I've NEVER seen such an attitude. Usually the people who can explain Greek are held in high regard. Exactly how many Bible study groups have you been a member of where you have seen this happen?

If you're going to bring in the First Amendment, you have to remember that it guarantees the right to religious expression. "Congress shall make no law regarding an establishment of religion, nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof." I don't think the RAs should have to waive their consitutional rights in order to have their jobs.

Two. In one, the members had exactly the reaction I recounted. In the other, the clergyman who was leading the discussion passed around a photocopied Greek text of the first page of John and gave a synopsis, to give the group an idea of the original. Several members approached him after the class and objected, that this was too hard and not what they expected. In other such groups, hearing the general vapidity and narcissism of the opinions expressed, I suspect any mention of Greek would have a similar effect. I'm a pledging churchgoer, by the way.

My point about the First Amendment is that it is precisely a balancing act between establishment and free expression. I suspect that what the founders had in mind when thinking of free expression, though, would be not suppressing unpopular groups like Quakers or, worse, not massacring groups like Huguenots. Their idea of establishment would be making clergy state employees, as they are in some European countries. If you pay an RA in a state school and tolerate the RA running religious groups in his or her residence, you're coming close to allowing a state employee to make religion an official part of his or her duties. I don't see a way around that. But you aren't preventing a non-RA employee from running a study group in his or her own room down the hall, and in fact you aren't preventing an RA from going to church -- and you aren't penalizing the RA for it, either.

If this got to the point of a trial, it would be very interesting, though I suspect courts would come down on the non-establishment side of the case. But there are certainly two reasonable points of view here.

If I found myself a member of a Bible study group with a don't-tell-me-anything-I-don't-already-know attitude I would have to find another group. John, from your previous comment you seem to think all Bible study groups are that way. I suggest you broaden your horizons.

I can't believe the RAs are on the job 24/7. On call, maybe, which is a different thing. On the job 24/7 has to be a violation of labor laws. I just can't see telling them that they can't ever be private citizens in their own dorm rooms.

As far as accessibility goes, my very modest and conservative daughter would die before she would confide in, or otherwise need to find accessible, an RA who would sponsor "The Vagina Monologues". As I stated earlier, that wouldn't concern me too much because you go to college to grow up, not to be nurtured by your RA. But to allow VM and not Bible studies, using the argument they do, clearly shows bias and I'm shocked that the school doesn't realize it.

Laura, I've been in Bible study groups from New Jersey to Washington DC to North Carolina to Florida to Los Angeles and environs, and places in between. I would suggest that your implication that my horizons aren't broad reflects, if anything, your own rather constricted views and a tendency I see in many comment sections for folks simply to scold people they don't agree with. You, I assume, have been able to help Bible groups with your knowledge of the aorist?

I don't know what the heck aorist is. I'm talking about the fact that you say that Bible studies are made up of ignorant morons.

I don't understand what the *content* of the Bible Study meetings has to do with the issue. No one is being forced to attend them.

"The problem appears to be with RAs in their roles as RAs holding exercises deemed to be sufficiently religious as to raise a potential problem, and there I think the university is correct, given the law."

No offense, but that's nonsense. Accepting employment with a public agency doesn't deprive a person of their individual rights protected under the First Amendment. Moreover, keep in mind that it was specifically stated that these were NOT official dorm activities, but conducted privately, on the RA's own time and in their own rooms.

Dave J said, "Public school or private school? And defensible in the sense that you could potentially win the lawsuit this would inevitably attract, or defensible in the sense that it wouldn't create any problems at all? If the latter, that strikes me as so idiotic that it could be grounds for a malpractice suit against the lawyer who provided such advice."

It was a large public school. The administrators in question were certain that the law was on their side. I can't imagine how general counsel let it go through, but that was (presumably still is) their policy.

"I can't believe the RAs are on the job 24/7. On call, maybe, which is a different thing. On the job 24/7 has to be a violation of labor laws. I just can't see telling them that they can't ever be private citizens in their own dorm rooms.

As far as accessibility goes, my very modest and conservative daughter would die before she would confide in, or otherwise need to find accessible, an RA who would sponsor "The Vagina Monologues". As I stated earlier, that wouldn't concern me too much because you go to college to grow up, not to be nurtured by your RA. But to allow VM and not Bible studies, using the argument they do, clearly shows bias and I'm shocked that the school doesn't realize it."

Laura, RAs generally have a set schedule but expansive on-call responsibilities. For example, my current staff of RAs cover 6 hours at the desk each week and are "on duty" one night per week. The on duty RA is required to be in the building, walk 4 sets of rounds during the night and respond to any emergencies or problems. However, if an RA is not on duty and encounters something or a resident comes to him or her with a problem, the expectation is that the RA will address the issue. It's not as bad as it sounds, though ... even with their duty night, my RAs average about 20 hours per week. A lot of the "spur of the moment" issues are things like residents who just need to talk about something (boyfriend/girlfriend, grades, homesickness, etc), and these are things the RAs would likely be responding to even if they weren't on staff. We meet with each RA weekly, not only to review their performance but also to make sure they're getting enough time to themselves and are getting enough weekends off or down time.

Your accessibility argument, in my professional opinion, hits at the heart of the problem. If hosting a Bible study off the clock makes RAs "unapproachable," it is inconsistent to rule that sponsoring TVM does not. I agree with you 100%.

I don't understand what the *content* of the Bible Study meetings has to do with the issue. No one is being forced to attend them.

No doubt the panicky pills are afraid that attending Bible Studies will be a prerequisite for getting enforcement of quiet hours, the special stash of toilet paper and a blind eye to non-compliance to the Thursday Night Drinking Club weekly "improptu" fire drill.

How is this not religious oppression? Do you really think that if it was any other religion besides for Christianity that this would go on? Univeristies should realize that freedom of religion and freedom of speech trump any policies that they have. I hope that FIRE introduces this school to these concepts and another concept call "lawsuit".

"Univeristies should realize that freedom of religion and freedom of speech trump any policies that they have."

Er, all of them? If this were a private school we were talking about, it'd be a far less open-and-shut case.