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Virginia State University (VSU) is facing a federal lawsuit from two Christian student organizations that say the school stripped them of their official campus status and placed them under the direct authority of a university-appointed minister.
"Higher education has really broke from its long-standing desire to promote intellectual diversity and to actually seek truth and instead, they are essentially telling students that any disagreement that certain speech is violence, and that hearing difference of opinions on important topics is actually not encouraged, it's actually discouraged," Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) senior counsel Tyson Langhofer told Fox News Digital.
"I think that higher education is really failing in its primary role, which is to educate the next generation into how to deal with living in a pluralistic society with people who have different opinions," he added.
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Attorneys with ADF filed the lawsuit on behalf of campus chapters for Women of Victory and Bethel Campus Fellowship. The lawsuit challenges VSU’s updated Campus Ministries Policy, which plaintiffs argue violates the First Amendment by forcing Christian student groups under university control while granting exemptions to non-Christian religious groups.
According to the policy, all Christian student-led ministries must operate under the "governance and influence" of VSU Campus Minister Thomas Wynn and an advisory board made up of faculty and university personnel. Additionally, the rule bans student ministries from affiliating with their national parent organizations.
Langhofer told Fox News Digital that the policy unconstitutionally penalizes Christian students for their religious beliefs.
"The message that it would send is that the First Amendment means what it says: that you can't treat secular groups better than religious groups," Langhofer said. "You can't treat one religious group worse than another religious group, regardless of your motives. It doesn't matter whether your motives are unity or things like that — you can't have one single campus pastor on campus that is able to control all Christian groups, and then exclude the Muslim group and allow them to receive all of the benefits."
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Non-Christian and Muslim student organizations remain exempt from the mandate, according to the legal filing.
The lawsuit alleged that the policy targets Women of Victory and Bethel Campus Fellowship — both local chapters of national organizations that host Bible studies, leadership training, and spiritual development events for students on and off campus.
Although both groups remain listed on VSU’s official website, ADF representatives noted that the online directory does not reflect their current operational status on campus. The student organizations are seeking a court order restoring their status as fully recognized registered student organizations (RSOs).
Langhofer pointed to "theological differences" between the campus pastor and the student organizations as a core issue created by the university's mandate.
"I don't know whether that's the fruit of this or not," Langhofer said regarding the policy's origins. "What it ultimately comes down to is an attempt to control what these groups are doing by the university, rather than allowing these groups to continue to operate in the same fashion as they've operated for a long time."
He emphasized that decades of legal precedent prohibit public universities from targeting groups based on religious viewpoints.
"The Supreme Court has held for a very long time that all student groups on campus must be treated equally, and you can't single some out simply because of what they believe," Langhofer told Fox News Digital.
Virginia State University did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
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