CENTER TAKES ON REPRESENTATION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF THE CUMBERLANDS IN FUNDING DISPUTE

Christian Legal Society’s Center for Law & Religious Freedom has joined the team representing the University of the Cumberlands in a state funding dispute.

Cumberlands is a theologically conservative four-year liberal arts institution associated with the Kentucky Baptist Convention.  Like most Christ-centered institutions of higher education, Cumberlands maintains biblical standards of conduct for its students, faculty, administrators, and staff.  Among other things, the university expects its students to live by historic Christian ethics in the area of human sexuality.

Earlier this year, Cumberlands learned that one of its students was unrepentently engaging in homosexual conduct and discussing that activity on a public website.  After investigating the matter and communicating with the student, the university concluded that he had violated its code of conduct and asked him to leave school. 

While this was going on, the Kentucky legislature had appropriated $10 million to the university for the construction of a new pharmacy school, with an additional $1 million to be set aside for scholarships.  The part of the state in which the University sits is economically disadvantaged and in particular need of health care professionals like pharmacists.  The legislature’s decision to invest these funds at Cumberlands had nothing to do with the school’s Baptist identity or its policies regarding sexual ethics.

Certain activist groups became aware of the university’s application of its code of conduct, and pressured Kentucky’s governor, Ernie Fletcher, to veto the appropriation.  They argued that it was impermissible to spend state money at religious institutions, despite the fact that the proposed pharmacy school would invigorate the local economy and fulfill an important need for health care providers in southeastern Kentucky.  These activists were upset that the religious institution at which the money would be spent engages in what they called “sexual orientation discrimination.”

Governor Fletcher nonetheless signed the bill.  Days later, the activists sued.  Christina Gilgor, executive director of the Kentucky Fairness Alliance (a homosexual rights advocacy organization), asked the Franklin County Circuit Court to stop the governor and his cabinet officials from proceeding with the planned appropriation.  She argued that the planned expenditure would violate a number of provisions of the Kentucky Constitution, including an amendment that limits the power of government to aid religious educational institutions.  She also argued that by funding a “discriminatory” school, Kentucky itself was denying equal protection of the laws to individuals who might wish to attend the university’s pharmacy school but nonetheless ignore its biblical standards of conduct by unrepentently engaging in same-sex sexual intimacy.

Christian Legal Society’s Center for Law & Religious Freedom offered its services to the University of the Cumberlands, and it accepted.  On the university’s behalf, the Center intervened in Gilgor’s lawsuit against the state officials.  Also representing the University are Guenther, Jordan, & Price of Nashville and Stites & Harbison of Frankfort.