Undergraduate Student Government is planning to reinforce its commitment to ASU's non-discrimination policy.
Richard Sales, college of liberal arts and sciences senator, said he introduced a resolution to affirm USG's non-discrimination stance in response to the University's decision to pull out of the Christian Legal Society suit. Sales proposed a bill at the USG Senate meeting Sept. 13 that re-enforced the USG constitutional bylaw that prohibits "USG funding of organizations whose activities discriminate on the basis of race, religion, sex or sexual orientation."
According to the bill proposal, the USG Senate is "deeply concerned that the Christian Legal Society's settlement with ASU would set a precedent for future acts of discrimination by student organizations."
CLS filed a lawsuit against ASU last fall after ASU wouldn't recognize the organization on campus because of its exclusion of non-Christian and homosexual students.
ASU settled the lawsuit out of court Sept. 2, agreeing to allow CLS to be a recognized organization on campus and base membership on religion, but not on sexuality.
College of Education senator Bill Starsky said the USG bill would not affect CLS because the Christian group is an organization of law students, not undergraduates.
Sales said USG does not directly condemn CLS but is using the organization as an example of the types of discriminatory practices that will not be allowed on campus.
"USG has the ability to appropriate funding to undergraduate organizations, and if you are trying to discriminate, you are not going to get funding," Sales said.
This bill will raise awareness of the non-discrimination policy and will notify students and the ASU administration of USG's official stance on the matter, Sales said.
Sales said he thinks the bill will be passed, but the University Affairs committee is still discussing it.
Sales said he does not know when the committee will make its final decision regarding his bill, but the review process can last several weeks.
Starsky said USG was pleased with ASU's decision to take CLS to court but was upset when ASU compromised the non-discrimination policy.
"This is the USG retracting their bravo from last year," Starsky said. "This is what we're saying -- 'We're very disappointed in what they're doing.'
"The ASU administration should have taken this to court and continued to fight."
Starsky said he hopes the bill catches the attention of ASU administration.
"I definitely want to see this resolution passed and wind up on one of the administrator's desk to say 'Hey, we are the student government and we don't think this is a good idea,' " he said.
ASU administration was unable to comment without consulting its legal counsel.
Reach the reporter at jourdan.rassas@asu.edu.
