Two students at the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire are suing the school over a policy that does not allow students to count religious activities toward a mandatory community service requirement.
Travis Barham, legal counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom, which represents the students, said the university’s policy unconstitutionally singles out religious belief for exclusion.
“No public university should ever use a community service program as a vehicle to advance and instill anti-religious bias,” Mr. Barham said in a statement. “If the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire wants to require its students to perform community service, it must treat all forms of community service as equally valuable. The Constitution and federal court precedent prohibit it from targeting religious community service and denying students credit for it. That kind of animosity toward and discrimination against religion is unconstitutional.”
The lawsuit says Alexandra Liebl attempted to count 30 credit hours stemming from her volunteer efforts with a second-grade religious education class at a local Roman Catholic church.
University officials denied her request, citing the school’s Service-Learning Policy, which states that “this public university will not award credit for time spent directly involved in promoting religious doctrine, proselytizing, or worship.”
Another student, Madelyn Rysavy, became aware of the university’s decision and realized that her own volunteer efforts in the same church’s Sunday School classes would not count toward the requirement. She has yet to submit her service hours to the school for approval, but would like to ensure that they are counted.
“This is raw favoritism of non-religious ’beliefs, preferences, and values’ over religious ones, and that’s not constitutional,” Mr. Barham said. “The university prohibits students from receiving service-learning credit for activities that involve religious instruction, persuasion, and recruitment, but it awards credit — and even encourages students to seek credit — for activities that involve the same forms of expression from a non-religious perspective. But the First Amendment prohibits government officials from preferring some viewpoints while exiling, denigrating, or targeting others.”
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