Des Moines Register
06-02-07
No room for a chaplain on ISU's squad
1st Amendment bars establishment of religion at public universities.
REGISTER EDITORIAL BOARD
Today's question: Why can Notre Dame's football team have an official team
chaplain but Iowa State University's can't?
The answer: Because the U.S. Constitution says so.
Whether that means the Fighting Irish have a competitive advantage because
they are able to summon divine intercession is open to speculation. But it's easy
to make and defend the legal distinction between the two schools that says Iowa
State can't have the same advantage.
Notre Dame, a private university founded by and affiliated with the Roman
Catholic Church, is free to establish Catholicism as the official religion of the
university. State universities such as Iowa State are public institutions created
and owned by the government, and as such they are prohibited by the
Constitution from establishing a religion - any religion.
ISU President Gregory Geoffroy has asked the university's Athletics Council to
rule on the proposal by head football coach Gene Chizik to establish an official
team chaplain, funded by private donations. Geoffroy should simply tell the coach
to drop the idea.
Accusations of political correctness
Besides raising questions of legal liability - the American Civil Liberties Union of
Iowa has already raised objections - it would be clearly inappropriate for a public
university to establish an official religious position, regardless of the student
group targeted, regardless of the religion and regardless of who is paying the tab.
Defenders of Chizik's idea accuse critics of being politically correct. Actually, they
are being constitutionally correct.
Although the U.S. Supreme Court has in some respects muddled First
Amendment law as it pertains to public educational institutions, there is no
misunderstanding about the meaning of the first line of the First Amendment to
the Constitution: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of
religion." It's inconceivable that a public university could install a Christian
minister in the official capacity as a chaplain anywhere on campus without
violating that clear language. It would make no difference whether the chaplain
were paid by Warren Buffett or took the job without pay.
Fears about pressure to participate
It does not require an expert in constitutional law to see the problem with this
idea and why the founders took pains to say it shouldn't happen. Just ask
students of other faiths - Jews, say, or Muslims - how they would feel about a
state-sanctioned chaplain representing a Christian sect huddled with the football
team.
Or, as Randall Wilson of the Civil Liberties Union points out, ask a non-Christian
student-athlete whether he or she might feel isolated by a religious leader of
another faith appointed by the coach. Might that have an impact on the coach's
view of that student if he or she were to decline to participate in prayer meetings?
Might the athlete feel pressured to participate to avoid any conflict with the
coach? Wilson said this is a recipe for a violation of student-athletes' right to
freely exercise their own religious beliefs.
Obligation to provide equal access
That said, it is worth quoting the rest of the religion clause of the First
Amendment: After it says that Congress shall make no law establishing a
religion, it goes on to say that neither shall it make any law "prohibiting the free
exercise thereof." That means a university owned and operated by the
government must accommodate students' spiritual needs - but it also must
provide equal access to all religions.
The University of Iowa, for example, allows the Fellowship of Christian Athletes
to hold meetings with students, which is proper, assuming there is no pressure
from coaches to attend the meetings and all other faiths have the same access to
students.
Aside from constitutional problems, the question is whether Iowa State needs to
provide special accommodations for the spiritual needs of its student-athletes. It's
not as if they are confined in an institution as prison inmates are. They are free to
take advantage of religious offerings on and off campus, the same offerings that
supposedly serve other students well.
That question is best left to officials in the athletic department. But if they believe
student-athletes need additional spiritual guidance, they shouldn't forget they are
in Ames, Iowa, not South Bend, Indiana.