A federal judge will allow most of a lawsuit brought by a Christian student organization against the University of Nebraska-Lincoln to move forward.
Ratio Christi, which started at UNL in 2018 to promote the "historical, scientific, and philosophical reasons to believe Christianity is true," sued the university after it was denied funding to bring a speaker to campus.
All eight members of the NU Board of Regents, as well as several administrators, the Association of Students of the University of Nebraska, and the University Program Council were named in the suit.
According to the complaint, filed in October 2021 in U.S. District Court, Ratio Christi sought $1,500 to bring Robert Audi, a former UNL faculty member who now teaches at the University of Notre Dame, to campus in April.
The University Program Council, which distributes more than $270,000 in funds collected from student fees, denied the request, telling Ratio Christi the Event Fund could not be used to finance "political campaigns, or speakers of a political or ideological nature."
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Instead, the council recommended Ratio Christi add a speaker to promote a countering viewpoint, which the student group said it did not want to do.
On Wednesday, U.S. District Court Judge John Gerrard said while the denial of funding spurred the lawsuit, the claims in Ratio Christi's complaint "sweep far more broadly, posing a broadside attack on the entire funding scheme" for speakers at UNL.
Along with imposing restrictions on student groups to not host speakers who deliver ideological or political perspectives, or also invite speakers to provide another viewpoint, Ratio Christi alleged UNL invited speakers who promote certain ideologies without hosting opposing views.
Gerrard said Ratio Christi's argument that UNL's mandatory student fee allocation system violated the constitutional rights of the group's members was "not well developed and somewhat difficult to follow," but that he would allow it to proceed because the university did not provide adequate reason to dismiss it.
"And quite possibly, the confusion surrounding this claim may even further the plaintiff's argument to the extent it demonstrates that the university's student fee allocation system seems to be riddled with differing policies whose applications are unclear," Gerrard wrote in the order.
While UNL's policy for campus speakers allows for organizations to pay political and ideological speakers to come to campus, Gerrard said, student organizations cannot receive funds under an Event Fund policy if the speakers they wish to invite are political or ideological speech.
"While there very well may be a clear system for disbursing student fees and lawful explanations for the differing standards and policies presented in the record, that cannot be determined at this stage from the facts and arguments before the Court," Gerrard said.
The order, which paves the way for the case to proceed toward trial, granted the university's motion to dismiss claims for damages against the individuals named in the lawsuit.
Gerrard said that to the extent that any regent or administrator had personal involvement in the decision to deny funding, they would be entitled to qualified immunity.
The plaintiffs are entitled to seek compensatory damages against the individual defendants, however, including for the reimbursement of student activity fees.