|
Federal law may ban Alfred action
Found this on the DKE website. I assume that some GLOs will go to the courts on this one.
"Because of congressional action last fall, Middlebury, Colby and Dartmouth may all be in legal trouble if they insist on trying to enforce their discriminatory ban on traditional Greek organizations. On Oct. 7, President Clinton signed into law the Higher Education Amendments of 1998, which included a new provision expressing the "sense of Congress" that no college that receives federal funds
should sanction (suspend, expel, etc.) any student merely for exercising the normal First Amendment right to join a private organization.
Presidents of the colleges note, correctly, that the congressional language includes no enforcement mechanism. But David Easlick, national executive director for the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity, makes some telling rejoinders. He notes that in earlier cases where n o direct enforcement mechanism is specified, federal courts have ruled that individuals have a right to private relief in the courts against those, like the colleges, who ignore the congressional directives. "Congressional silence does not prelude a court from implying a private right of action," wrote a Third Circuit Court in Hindes vs. F.D.I.C. in 1998. In a similar case 13 years earlier involving a group called the Student Coalition for Peace, the court had written that it "would be extremely reluctant to conclude that Congress intended to create mandatory duties but no means of enforcing them."
|
Threaded Mode