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The administration of Liberty University is moderating its position on the campus’s College Democrats club, which it dissolved a little over a week ago.
In a May 15 email, LU Vice President for Student Affairs Mark Hine told the club’s president that the College Democrats was “no longer going to be recognized as a Liberty University club,” citing university regulations requiring that all campus groups and their parent organizations adopt policies and positions consistent “with the distinctly Christian mission of the University, the Liberty Way, the Honor Code, or the policies and procedures promulgated by the University.” Groups in conflict with those principles, he noted, could not “be approved, recognized or permitted to meet on campus, advertise, distribute or post materials, or use University facilities.”
Yesterday, however, in an email to Rod Snyder, an official with the Young Democrats of America, LU chancellor Jerry Falwell Jr. took a different stance. The College Democrats, he said, would not be allowed to use Liberty University’s name, but they “will not be prevented from meeting on campus or having a club.”
Fallwell claimed that Snyder had been “misinformed” about Liberty’s position on the CD, and he seems to have grasped onto an ambiguity in Hine’s original email as the basis for his new position. Although Hine said that CD would not be recognized as a club because of the Democratic party’s views, he did not explicitly say that the group would not be allowed to meet on campus. He strongly implied it, to the point that it’s the only sensible reading of his letter, but he didn’t say it explicitly.
This isn’t a complete reversal of the university’s May 15 policy, but it is a significant retreat, and a major victory for the school’s College Democrats.
Sunday morning update: Liberty University offered another olive branch to the College Democrats on Friday, offering full recognition if the group would affiliate with the national organization Democrats for Life rather than the Democratic Party. On its face, this seems like a plausible compromise, as the LU College Dems identifies itself as a pro-life organization.
There is, however, a hitch.
Democrats for Life does not endorse or campaign on behalf of pro-choice candidates. Ever. And if the Liberty University College Democrats were to affiliate with DfL, they wouldn’t be able to do so either. As LUCD president Brian Diaz pointed out to a local newspaper, that means that the group would have to sit on the sidelines of the 2012 presidential election.
Update: Liberty University has backed down somewhat from its original ban. Details here.
At Liberty University in Virginia, the campus chapter of the College Democrats was informed on May 15 that because the principles of the Democratic Party contradict “Christian doctrine” and “the moral principles held by Liberty University,” the club would no longer be recognized by the university.
The College Democrats chapter was recognized last October. LU, which was founded by conservative activist and preacher Jerry Falwell, has long hosted a chapter of the College Republicans.
The governor of Virginia and all four major candidates to replace him — three Democrats and a Republicans — have all said they oppose the university’s decision. The national Young Democrats are circulating a petition opposing the move, and Rachel Maddow hosted the club’s president Brian Diaz last night.
Liberty isn’t the only conservative religious college to ban a political club recently — administrators at Idaho’s Brigham Young University dissolved the College Democrats and the College Republicans this winter, saying they wanted the campus to be “politically neutral.” The Rexburg, Idaho Standard Journal has a long, thorough story on that decision.
Notre Dame’s commencement begins this afternoon at 2 o’clock, with live streaming video here. President Obama will receive an honorary doctorate and deliver the commencement address. I’ll be liveblogging the event, which anti-abortion activists have threatened to disrupt.
Obama beat John McCain 57% to 41% in a straw poll of Notre Dame students last October, and the Notre Dame Observer has said that initial feedback from their student readership was strongly supportive of the commencement invitation. A poll out on Thursday, by the way, finds that only 34% of American Catholics, and only 43% of regular Catholic churchgoers, think UND should rescind their invitation to Obama.
1:40 pm: Anti-Obama protesters have been out in force at Notre Dame for weeks now. Perennial GOP also-ran Alan Keyes was arrested on campus pushing a bloody doll in a Spongebob Squarepants stroller last Monday, and a plane flying a banner bearing an image of an aborted fetus has been buzzing the campus since late April.
1:50 pm: The live feed from commencement is up now, with video of graduates filing into the venue. The commencement is being held in the Joyce Center, the campus’s 11,000-seat basketball arena. The official list of prohibited items is a long one.
1:58 pm: Commencement is beginning two minutes early, with the procession of the faculty.
Longtime anti-choice wackjob Randall Terry says that someone leaked him a copy of the text of the honorary degree President Obama will be receiving on Sunday, and he says this is it:
The University of Notre Dame Confers the degree of Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, on the 44th president of the United States, whose historic election opened a new era of hope in a country long divided by its history of slavery and racism. A community organizer who honed his advocacy for the poor, the marginalized and the worker in the streets of Chicago, he now organizes a larger community, bringing to the world stage a renewed American dedication to diplomacy and dialogue with all nations and religions committed to human rights and the global common good. Through his willingness to engage with those who disagree with him and encourage people of faith to bring their beliefs to the public debate, he is inspiring this nation to heal its divisions of religion, culture, race and politics in the audacious hope for a brighter tomorrow.
On Barack H. Obama, Washington, District of Columbia
I’m going to go out on a limb and call this a fake.
It reads like a right-winger’s image of how a left-winger would praise Obama, dwelling on exactly the aspects of Obama’s public persona — community organizer, healer of divisions, “advocacy for … the worker in the streets of Chicago” — that drive conservatives crazy.
Maybe I’m wrong, but it just doesn’t smell right to me.
Friday morning update: Fox News claims it’s legit.
Sunday morning update: Fox is still vouching for the text’s authenticity, but as far as I can tell no other news outlet has bitten. Various conservative Catholic bloggers are skeptical, but tentatively appalled — one says that it reads like Obama campaign literature, while another says that if it’s real, it’s a “Fuck you” from the university to the Catholic church’s bishops.
Sunday afternoon update: I guessed wrong. It was real. Yeah, I’d call it a bit of a fuck you to the university’s critics.
By the way, I’m liveblogging the commencement as it occurs.
Perennial presidential-campaign asterisk Alan Keyes was one of twenty-two anti-choice activists arrested on the Notre Dame campus yesterday. The group, which included Operation Rescue founder/sleazeball Randall Terry, was protesting President Obama’s upcoming commencement address.
The group was arrested for trespassing — Notre Dame policy allows only “student-led protests” on campus, and apparently this group couldn’t (or didn’t care to) find any student supporters.
But that’s not my favorite part of the story. My favorite part of the story is this: When Keyes walked onto campus, he was pushing a blood-spattered doll in a stroller…
A Spongebob Squarepants stroller.
Update: Photo from here. Note that the doll was so small and unobtrusive that the (“pro-life,” but disgusted anyway) blogger who posted it thinks that Keyes was pushing a bloody Spongebob doll in the stroller. Note also that commenter Leslie Hanks actually approves of parading around with bloody Spongebob dolls as an anti-abortion tactic.
studentactivism.net 
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