A federal court recently dismissed part of a lawsuit brought by an atheist group. That lawsuit sought to strike down a Trump-era regulation barring universities from restricting students groups’ religious freedoms on college campuses.
On January 15, federal judge Amy Berman Jackson dismissed the two primary claims in a lawsuit brought against the Education Department’s 2020 “Free Inquiry Rule,” which allows student groups to have leaders who reflect the group’s beliefs.
The judge, who was appointed by President Obama, concluded that the Free Inquiry Rule, issued by the Trump administration in 2020, was within the Education Department’s statutory authority, but left for another day whether the rule was “arbitrary and capricious” by failing to consider various things.
The Secular Student Alliance had sued Biden’s Department of Education in 2021 seeking to overturn the rule, arguing it is discriminatory. “The rule gives religious student clubs the absolute right to use religion to discriminate while still receiving official university recognition and funding,” the SSA declared. “The rule thus undermines the nondiscrimination policies that many colleges and universities have enacted to ensure that clubs don’t reject students from membership or leadership positions on the basis of race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, or other protected characteristics.”
The lawsuit had been temporarily put on hold as the Biden U.S. Department of Education considered rescinding the Free Inquiry Rule through notice-and-comment rulemaking, but it failed to complete that process before Trump was elected in 2020. The Education Department then informed the court it had no plans for “publication of a final rule prior to the change in presidential administration on January 20, 2025.”
So the court reached the merits of the atheist students’ main arguments, such as their claim that the Education Department had no statutory authority for adopting the Free Inquiry Rule — and dismissed those claims from the lawsuit.
Religious groups praised the ruling’s dismissal of those claims. “We have a sense of freedom now, as if the wind is at our back,” said Corey Miller of Ratio Christi, a campus Christian ministry that had filed an amicus brief in defense of the rule with the assistance of Alliance Defending Freedom.
“We can now have confidence that we’ll be treated fairly, inclusively, at the universities, which were largely started by Christians and for Christ,” Miller added. “All we are asking for is equal freedom under the law. Sometimes we have to give continuing education to university administrators and remind them what the law of the land is.”
Ismail Royer, director of Islam and religious freedom at the Religious Freedom Institute, also praised the ruling. “This outcome is a testimony to the efforts of organizations fighting to preserve the religious freedom of students and institutions. It’s also a testimony to the effectiveness of using opportunities the APA affords to the public to promote good and prevent harm by administrative agencies,” he declared in a press release. “Ultimately, the upshot in this case is that students at public institutions of higher education who are members of religious student groups will be free to select their own leaders. And that’s a good thing.”
Miller says that if the lawsuit had been successful, “it would have been virtual open hunting season on groups like Ratio Christi.” Miller intends to work with the Trump Education Department to prod colleges to comply with the Free Inquiry Rule “so that they don’t misbehave.” “We have a president now who will be willing to actually enforce the law,” he added. “Biden would not have done so, and in fact he wanted to dismantle the policy. After four long years, we experienced victory, justice, and freedom for all.”
