Quote:
Originally posted by PSK480
IvySpice: Congress has made rules about federal funding and what must be done if private institutions accept it. Such as they must follow certain constitutional requirements; freedom of speech, assembly, association. They just don't have to follow them as much as public institutions. The ball is in the institution's court if they want to recieve or decline federal funding. Either they want to play by the rules or they don't want the money that badly.
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But that doesn't mean that the Constitution applies to private institutions; it means that Congress has, by statute, (or a federal department has, by regulation) put conditions on the receipt of federal funds. If it accepts the funds, the institution also accepts the conditions. It's a matter of contract. In exchange for federal funds, the instutition agrees to do/not do certain things. (And I certainly stand to be corrected, but I think IvySpice is right -- Congress has in no way mandated that private institutions that receive federal funds must, as a condition of receiving those funds, allow Greek life.)
The Constitution itself still doesn't apply, though. If someone wants to challenge what a private institution is doing based on receipt of federal funds, then they have to make a claim that the institution is violating the conditions of receiving the federal funds, and the institution may have to forfeit or pay back the federal funds for not complying with the conditions it accepted when it took the federal funds.
But no one can claim that the private institution violated their constitutional rights.