Do you want to join your university’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual Union? Or perhaps you want to join Campus Crusade for Christ. A sharply divided U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a public university may require its student organizations to admit any student as a voting member or officer, regardless of whether that student openly disagrees with or is even hostile to the group’s fundamental beliefs.

Technically, this means that the LGBU may not deny someone who is openly homophobic in their organization. This also means that a satanist could join Campus Crusade for Christ.

In a 5-4 decision, the Court ruled that the University of California Hastings College of the Law did not violate the First Amendment rights of the Christian Legal Society (CLS) when it denied the group official recognition because of the group’s requirement that its voting members and leaders sign a “Statement of Faith” expressing belief in CLS’ particular religious worldview.

By denying CLS recognition, the group will not have access to university benefits such as meeting space, e-mail listservs, literature distribution tables, and student fee funding. The majority opinion in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, authored by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, held that Hastings’ policy is constitutional.

Writing for the majority, Justice Ginsburg dismissed the fact that the policy allows students hostile to a group’s core tenets to dilute or disrupt the communication of the group’s preferred message, or even to take over the group altogether, claiming that these concerns are “more hypothetical than real.”

The majority opinion also insists that denying recognition to belief-based groups like CLS is constitutionally permissible in part because groups denied recognition may nevertheless avail themselves of private means of communication, such as social networking sites, to reach fellow students. However, in so holding, the majority demonstrates a disturbing comfort with consigning belief-based student groups to second-class status on campus. The Court’s ruling relegates religious student groups like CLS to the sidelines of campus life because of their refusal to compromise their beliefs, and forces other belief-based student groups to choose between offering hostile students voting rights or operating in the shadows of campus life.